A,, 


•4- 


THE 

LIFE 

OF 

THOMAS  PAINE, 

AUTHOR  OP 

COMMON  SENSE,   THE  CRISIS,  RIGHTS  OF  MAK? 
&c.  See.  &c. 


BY  JAMES  CHEETHAM. 


"  SPEAK  OP  ME  AS  I  AM.", SHAKSPEARE, 


NEW- YORK  : 


PRINTED   BY   SOUTHWICK   AND   PFJLSUE, 

NO.   3,    NEW-STKtET. 

1809. 


District  ofJYeiv-  York,  s*. 

BEIT  REMEMBERED,  That  on  the  thirtieth  day  of  August, 

in  the  thirty-fourth  year  of  the  independence  ot  the 

United  States  of  America,  James  Cheetham,  of  the 

said  district,  hath  deposited  in  this  office  the  title  of 

L.  s.     a  book,  the   right   whereof  he  claims  as  author,  in 

the  words  following,  to  wit :  "  The  Life  of  Thomas 

Paine,  author  of  Common  Sense,  the  Crisis,  Rights; 

of  Man,  &c.  &c.  &c.    By  James  Cheetham.     "  Speak  of  me 

as  I  am."    Shakspeare." 

In  conformity  to  the  act  of  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  entitled,  "  An  act  for  the  encouragement  of  learning, 
by  securing  the  copies  of  Maps,  Charts,  and  Books,  to  the 
authors  and  proprietors  of  such  copies  during  the  times  there 
in  mentioned,"  and  also  to  an  act  entitled,  **  An  act  supple 
mentary  to  the  act  entitled  an  act  for  the  encouragement 
of  learning,  by  securing  the  copies  of  Maps,  Charts,  and 
Books,  to  the  authors  and  proprietors  of  such  copies,  during 
the  times  therein  mentioned,  and  extending  the  benefits 
thereof  to  the  arts  of  designing,  engraving  and  e*  ling  histo 
rical  and  other  prints." 

CHARLES  CLINTON, 
Clerk  of  the  District  of  New-York. 


, 


TO 

GEORGE  CLINTON, 

VICE-PRESIDENT  OP  THE   UNITED  STATES. 


SIR, 


WITHOUT  asking  your  permission,  allow  me  to  dedi 
cate  to  you,  as  a  tribute  of  my  admiration  of  your  pri 
vate  and  public  virtues,  the  following  Life  of  the  Au 
thor  of  Common  Sense.  I  know  not,  indeed,  that  a 
work,  which  necessarily  treats  in  some  respect  of  re 
volutions,  could  more  properly  be  dedicated  than  to 
one,  who,  in  the  struggles  of  the  colonies  for  indepen 
dence,  animated  his  countrymen  by  his  patriotism,  en 
courage  ",  them  by  his  firmness,  and  supported  them  with 
his  sword.  "  Had  it,  said  Mr.  Burke,  adverting  with 
pious  resignation  to  the  death  of  his  son  ;  had  it  pleased 
God  to  continue  to  me  the  hopes  of  succession,  I  should 
have  been  a  sort  of  founder  of  a  family."  You,  sir, 
have  been  more  favoured  by  Providence.  You  have 
not  only  the  great  felicity  of  being  the  founder  of  a 
family,  every  branch  of  which  I  hope  but  dare  not 
believe  will  emulate  your  virtues,  but  you  have  also 
the  glory  of  being  enrolled  amongst  the  most  conspi- 
/  cuous  founders  of  a  great  empire. 


743240 


lv' 


In  whatever  light  we  contemplate  your  character,  it 
is  worthy  of  all  imitation.  When,  at  the  commence 
ment  of  the  war  of  independence,  irresolution,  like  a 
pestilence,  shook  the  nerves  of  the  state  ;  when,  awed 
by  hostile  appearances,  by  the  power  of  a  formidable 
enemy,  by  the  absence  of  preparation  for  defence,  and 
the  want  of  adequate  resources,  not  a  few  of  your  con 
temporaries  shrunk  from  the  responsibility,  the  suf 
frages  of  your  fellow  citizens  called  you  to  the  chair 
of  the  state,  and,  evincing  an  intrepidity  which  the 
exigencies  of  the  times  required,  you  obeyed  their 
voice.  Your  country  beheld  you  with  enthusiasm  and 
joy  in  the  triple  character  of  an  unyielding  patriot,  an 
enlightened  goveraour,  a  gallant  general.  At  that  pe 
riod,  pregnant  with  consequences  to  posterity  the  most 
baneful  or  the  most  happy,  no  caucuses*  were  held  to 
cheat  you  out  of  the  affections  of  the  people.  Those 
who  applauded  your  heroick  defence  of  Forts  Mont 
gomery  and  Clinton,  against  a  greatly  superior  force, 
although  they  envied  you  the  glory,  were  far  from 
courting  the  danger  of  the  command.  The  steadiness 
of  your  course,  the  prudence  of  your  measures,  the 
bravery  of  your  conduct,  the  sagacity  of  your  councils, 


*  A  cant  term,  used  amongst  us  to  designate  a  political 
cabal  ;  an  assemblage  of  intriguers,  privately  convened  to 
plot  their  own  elevation,  upon  the  ruin,  npt  unfrecjuently,  of 
better  men. 


DEDICATOR  V 

civil  and  military,  attracted  the  notice  of  WASHINGTON, 
your  illustrious  companion  in  arms,  and  pointed  you 
;  ut  in  the  event  of  his  death  as  commander  in. 
chief  of  the  American  army.  Never  were  the  civil 
and  military  functions,  mingled  by  necessity,  more 
mildly,  more  faithfully,  or  more  ably  executed. 

The  peace,  which  gave  you  a  nation  and  crowned  you 
with  immortality,  did  not  efface  from  the  minds  of  your 
fellow  citizens  the  just  impressions  which  your  merito 
rious  services  had  stamped  upon  them.  For  twenty-one 
years  you  administered  the  government  of  the  state ! 
There  is  no  eulogium  of  language  that  can  equal  the 
eulogium  of  the  fact.  He  who  in  a  republick  like  ours, 
where  a  revolution  had  let  loose  the  passions — where 
the  press  is  licentious  beyond  all  example- — where  suf 
frage,  with  few  exceptions,  is  in  every  man's  hands — 
where  the  popular  will  is  almost  without  restraint— where 
demagogues,  greedy  of  money,  avaricious  of  popular 
honour,  are  numerous  and  ambitious,  and,  like  all  other 
demagogues,  hypocritical,  perfidious,  remorseless  ;  in 
,guch  a  republick,  under  such  circumstances,  his  merit 
Vanust  be  great,  who,  without  flattering  the  vanity  of  the 
multitude,  without  courting  their  capricious  favours,  dig- 
nifiedly  retains  a  station  so  elevated  for  a  period  so  long. 
I  like,  said  Lord  Mansfield,  that  popularity  which  fol 
lows,  not  that  which  is  run  after.  That  great  man 
liked,  I  fear,  what  he  never  enjoyed.  You,  sir,  more 
happy,  enjoyed,  in  plenitude,  that  which  he  liked. 


Vi  DEDICATION. 

From  the   chief  magistracy  of  the  state  you  were 
elected,  in  the  year  1805,  almost  without  your  know 
ledge,  certainly  without  your  agency,   to  the   second 
office  in  the  national  government.     Here,    maintaining 
the  solid  reputation  you  had  acquired,  it  was  expected, 
from  your  services  and  experience,  from  your  capacity 
and  the   gradations  of    office,    that  you  would   have 
succeeded     to     the    presidency,    when   Mr.  Jefferson 
retired  from  it.     This   expectation  would  have  been 
realized,  had  the  election  been  free.     Popularity  still 
followed  you,  and,  in  its  course  and  current,  gained 
both  rapidity  and  strength.    But,  although  you  were  the 
favourite  of  the  people,  you  were  not  the  choice  of  the 
reigning  president,  and  strange  as  it  may    seem,  the 
president  and  his  party,  (and  the  president  is  too  often 
the  president  of  a  party)  by  intrigue  and  manoeuvre, 
by  trick  and  stratagem,  can  elude  the  principles  of  the 
constitution,  and  render   them   nugatory.     Ill,  sir,  in 
this  regard  as  you  have  been  treated,  prominent  as  the 
injustice  and  ingratitude  of  the  nation  are,    I  do  not 
complain  entirely  on  your  account.     If  the  example  of. 
Mr.  Jefferson  is  to  be  followed  ;  if  it  is  to  be  "  omnip- 
©tent"  and  "binding,"  leaving  us,  as  has  been  contended 
for  by  his  friends^  no  "  option,"  the   constitution  is  a 
dead  letter ;  it  is  worse  ;  it  is  a  mockery  ;  for  whilst 
it  deludes  us  ivith  the  show,  and  thrills  us  with  the  sound 
of  freedom,   it  ingeniously,  and   almost  without  the 


DEDICATION.  Vll 

possibility  of  a  peaceful  remedy,  reduces  us  to  a  state 
of  vassalage.  Between  this  doctrine  and  practice,  and 
the  nature  of  an  hereditary  executive,  I  cannot  per 
ceive  any  essential  difference. 

The  president  and  vice  president  are  chosen  by 
electors,  who  in  some  of  the  states  are  elected  imme 
diately  by  the  people  ;  in  others,  by  the  state  legisla 
tures.  The  constitution  excludes,  in  terms,  members 
of  congress  and  persons  holding  places  of  honour  and 
profit  under  it  from  the  electoral  functions.  The  ex 
cluding  provision  was  intended  to  keep  out  of  the 
election  the  influence  of  gentlemen  of  both  descriptions, 
but  how  easily  is  it  dispensed  with  in  practice  ! 

Your  locks,  sir,  are  whitened  in  the  service  of  your 
country.  You  have  the  age  of  ripe  experience,  and 
the  experience  of  mature  age.  Yet  Mr.  Madison  was 
the  choice  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  for  he  was  committed,  it 
was  thought,  to  his  singular  system  of  administra* 
tion. 

To  Mr.  Jefferson,  a  re-election  had  been  offered  by 
his  party,  but  declined  by  him.  In  his  circular  letter 
of  declension  to  the  several  states,  he  assigns,  as  rea 
sons  for  declining,  that  he  had  served  two  terms  ;  that 
as  the  constitution  had  not  limited  the  duration  of  the 
service  of  a  president,  and  evils  of  great  magnitude 
might  grow  out  of  long  incumbency,  it  was  an  act  of 
patriotism  to  make  a  voluntary  resignation  of  the  office. 


Vlll  DEDICATION, 

In  a  popular  government,  professions  so  fair,  conceal* 
ing  a  purpose  so  foul,  are  sure  to  be  applauded.  The 
sage  spoke  like  an  angel,  and  it  was  therefore  conclud 
ed  that  his  actions  must  be  angelick. 

But  forgetting,  in  the  course  of  writing  his  circular, 
the  reasons  he  had  assigned  for  his  voluntary  retire 
ment,  perhaps  in  the  intenseness  of  his  purpose  to 
strike  a  blow  in  favour  of  Mr.  Madison,  he  unneces 
sarily  went  out  of  his  way  to  deliver  an  homily  on 
old  age.  In  this  he  mentioned,  in  very  pathetick  terms, 
that  the  cares  of  office  were  too  great  for  his  advanced 
years  ;  that  his  exhausted  nature,  sinking  under  those 
cares,  urged  tranquillity  and  ease  ;  and  he  artfully 
pointed  every  one  to  the  inference  which  he  meant  to  be 
drawn,  and  which  was  drawn  ;  that  a  gentleman,  as  far 
advanced  in  years  as  himself,  (and  you,  sir,  it  was  known 

5  one  or  two  years  older)  was  unfit  to  be  presi- 
ent  of  the  United  States  ! 

He  who  under  our  system  of  government  and  man 
agement  of  parties  obtains,  no  matter  by  what  means, 
a  nomination  to  an  elective  office,  is  sure  to  be  elected, 
if  his  party,  of  the  two  parties  into  which  the  nation  is 
divided,  be  the  stronger.  Every  thing,  therefore,  de 
pends  upon  starting,  and  the  adroitness  with  which  the 
candidate  is  started.  When  the  candidate  is  nominated, 
(and  the  nomination  is  always  made  by  a  few)  party 
doctrine  and  discipline  are,  that  he  must  be  supported* 


DEDICATION.  Jx 

Party  vengeance  is  next  denounced  against  the  noncom- 
formist,  and  though  he  may  not,  perhaps,  be  consum 
ed  by  fire  and  faggot,  he  is  put  out  of  the  pale  of  the 
political  church,  and  it  becomes  dangerous  to  give 
him  encouragement  in  his  business,  or  countenance 
in  any  other  way.*  By  party  law  it  cannot  be  asked, 
whether  the  candidate  be  a  good  moral  man,  or  qualified 
by  capacity  and  acquirements  for  the  business  of  legis 
lation.  Questions  of  this  nature,  when  nominations 
are  made,  are  heresies,  which,  if  obstinately  persevered 
in,  never  fail  to  be  punished. 

Aware,  when  he  composed  his  elegy  on  the  cares  of 
office  and  the  quiet  of  old  age,  of  this  overbearing  doc 
trine  and  overwhelming  practice,  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
sensible,  that  nothing  was  essential  to  the  election  of  Mr. 
Madison,  but  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Madison,  and 
that  nothing  was  necessary  to  that  nomination,  but  the 


*  The  republican  process  js  this.  A  meeting  is  publickly 
called  at  an  ale-house.  Resolutions,  denouncing  the  dissenter 
by  name,  are  drawn  up  ;  passed  ;  signed  by  the  chairman  and 
secretary,  and  published  in  the  newspapers.  A  person  hold 
ing  an  office,  or  some  way  dependant  on  popular  favour,  is 
asked  to  officiate  as  chairman.  If  from  the  iniquity  of  the 
act  which  is  about  to  be  committed,  he  refuse,  he  is  himself 
deemed  recreant,  and  deprived  of  office,  or  of  the  popular 
favour,  as  the  case  may  be.  But  there  is  no  danger  of  this. 
A  demagogue  cares  nothing  about  means  but  in  their  adapta 
tion  to  his  sinister  purposes. 


,x  DEDICATION. 

expression  of  his  own  wish,  however  indirectly,  that 
Mr.  Madison  should  be  nominated. 

Accordingly,  soon  after  the  publication  of  his  cir 
cular,  a  caucus  of  members  of  congress,  whose  influ 
ence  the  constitution  excludes  from  the  election,  was 
suddenly  convened,  at  Washington  city,  under  his  own 
eyes,  and  by  this  caucus,  Mr.  Madison  was  nominated 
for  the  presidency. 

The  old,  uniform,  and  slavish  doctrine,  was  now 
again  brought  forth  in  all  its  horrours.  The  republicans 
were  sorry,  very  sorry,  they  said  so,  and  I  believed 
them,  that  you,  sir,  were  not  nominated  by  the  caucus  ; 
but,  shrugging  up  their  shoulders  in  token  of  regret, 
these  champions  of  freedom,  or  rather,  I  must  say, 
for  I  will  speak  out,  these  ignorant  tramplers  on  con 
stitutional  law,  or  deliberate  assassins  of  constitutional 
principles,  mourniully  added,  that  the  nomination  must 
be  supported,  or  the  party  would  be  undone.  They 
felt  no  solicitude  for  the  cause  ;  none  for  the  principle ; 
all  was  for  the  party;  that  is,  in  respect  to  the  party 
chiefs,  for  immediate  personal  interest. 

This  act  of  intrigue  on  the  one  side,  slavishness  on 
the  other,  and  ingratitude  on  all ;  this  violation  of  the 
constitution,  was  carried  triumphantly  into  effect  by 
force  of  the  logick  which  is  frequently  employed  to 
preserve  it.  The  PEOPLE,  in  whom  the  power  of  de 
legation  resides,  and  to  whom,  at  short  stated  period^, 


DEDICATION.  XI 

the  power  having  been  exercised,  it  reverts,  are  the  ar 
biters  of  political  life  and  death.  Wheresoever  the  elective 
power  is  not  with  the  intelligence  of  a  nation,  and  it  is  not 
nor  can  it  be  where  suffrage  is  universal,  the  exertion  of 
power  will  often  be  capricious,  and  not  seldom  in  the 
highest  degree  tyrannical.  In  such  a  country,  parties  are 
more  distinctly  marked,  more  rancorous,  more  vindic 
tive,  more  really  hostile  to  each  other,  than  in  those 
nations,  where  liberty  lives,  moves,  and  has  her  being  in 
a  medium.  And  the  more  clearly  parties  are  divided,  the 
more  cordial  with  each  other  the  members  of  each  are  ; 
the  more  mutual  in  their  efforts  ;  the  more  narrow  and 
despotick  in  their  opinions  and  practices.  Hence  it  is  that 
when  the  republican  party  succeeds  against  the  federal 
in  the  election  of  a  president,  his  administration  must 
be,  without  exception,  in  gross,  implicitly  and  zealously 
supported  by  his  party  ;  whether  it  be  wise  or  foolish, 
weak  or  wicked,  for  the  interest  or  against  the  interest 
of  his  country.  It  will  be  perceived,  that  in  a  state  of 
things  so  discouraging,  a  republican  president  is  in  prac 
tice,  though  not  in  theory,  of  greater  weight  and  con 
sequence  in  the  republick,  than  the  royal  personage  is 
in  a  limited  monarchy,  and  that  he  is  backed  by  a 
force—- the  force  of  the  press-— the  force  of  zeal — the 
force  of  popular  assemblages— the  force  of  inexorable 
party  discipline,  greater  and  less  yielding  than  a  king 
of  England  can  even  hope  for.  And  that  which  is  a 


xji  DEDICATION. 

rule  out  of  congress  is  a  rule  in  it,  for  the  popular 
will,  dealing  out  rewards  and  punishments,  commands 
in  the  representative,  if  he  desire  to  retain  his  seat, 
the  most  rigid  and  humiliating  obedience.  Thus  cor 
roborated  by  a  victorious  party  in  the  national  legisla 
ture,  to  which  the  law,  never  openly,  is  yet  always 
given  by  the  president,  is  it  surprising  that  Mr.  Jeffer* 
son,  wrapped  up  in  popular  mummy,  in  effect  nominated 
his  successor,  controuled  the  national  elective  power, 
and  broke  down  the  national  constitution ;  or  that  his 
party,  that  it  might  be  entire,  supported  and  applauded 
the  violence  ? 

Having  witnessed  the  success  of  this  combination  of 
criminal  intrigue  and  reprehensible  acquiescence,  my 
hopes  of  the  duration  of  the  republick  are,  I  acknow 
ledge,  much  less  sanguine  than  they  were  wont  to  be. 
The  substance  of  the  constitution  is  essentially  gone ; 
the  name,  the  unessential  name,  I  may  say  only,  is 
retained.  The  late  practice  is  to  be  the  permanent 
one  ;  party  has  had  it  so  ;  party  will  have  it  so :  all 
argument  has  been  derided. 

Behold  then  the  mode  of  election  which  is  now  es 
tablished  !  See  to  what  a  shadow  our  boasted  liberty  is 
reduced ! 

The  president,  having  gratified  his  own  ambition,  is 
about  to  retire :  a  successor  is  to  be  elected.  The 
majority  of  congress,  elected  by  the  dominant  party, 


DEDICATION. 

are  assembled  at  Washington,  in  the  character  of  legis 
lators.  The  president,  to  whom  more  deference  is  paid 
by  his  party,  and  therefore  by  his  party's  representatives 
in  congress,  than  is  usually  paid  to  a  king  of  England, 
indicates  the  person  whom  he  wishes  for  his  successor. 
The  party  members  of  congress  assemble  in  caucus, 
nominate  the  favourite  of  the  retiring  president,  pub 
lish  the  nomination,  and  the  party  at  large,  which  under 
all  circumstances  must  be  united,  assemble  in  popular 
meetings.  These  meetings,  which,  whether  visibly  or 
not,  are  always  directed  and  governed  by  two  or  three 
leading  men,  pass  resolutions,  applauding  the  nomina 
tion  as  truly  republican,  pledge  themselves  to  its  sup 
port,  and  intimate  anathemas  against  those  of  the  party 
who  by  speaking  or  writing  manifest  opposition  to  it : 
all  this  is  matter  of  routine.  A  legislator  who  dissents 
cannot,  but  by  a  miracle,  be  re-elected  ;  he  loses  his 
popularity ;  and  where  popularity  is  so  precious,  who 
will  risk  it  ?  A  disobedient  placeman  forfeits  his  place, 
and  as  office  and  emolument  are  every  thing,  it  will  not 
be  inferred,  that  nonconformists  amongst  this  class  of 
citizens  will  be  numerous. 

Such  is  the  rule  ;  such  the  practice.  The  president 
may  therefore  appoint  his  successor.  The  presidency, 
therefore,  though  not  in  name,  is  yet  in  party  manage 
ment  and  detail  next  to  hereditary :  it  is  not  elective, 


DEDICATION. 

for  such  a  process  cannot  amount  to  any  thing   more 
than  a  mockery  of  election. 

In  addition  to  party  influence  on  party  representatives, 
(and  they  are  all  party  representatives)  other  motives 
dispose  them  to  gratify  the  wishes  of  the  retiring  pre 
sident.  In  appointments  to  office,  the  national  execu 
tive  has  very  extensive  patronage.  Several  members  of 
the  caucus  by  which  Mr.  Madison  was  nominated, 
resigning  their  seats  in  congress  seemingly  for  the  pur 
pose,  were  immediately  appointed  to  distinguished  and 
lucrative  places  by  Mr.  Jefferson.  Nor  can  the  new 
president  be  unmindful  of  those  to  whom  he  is  indebted 
for  his  election.  He  will  not  be  ungrateful. 

These  evils  are  reluctantly  confessed  by  the  friends 
of  a  nomination  of  the  president  by  congress ;  by  those 
who  fiercely  support  it ;  by  those  who  outrage  freedom 
of  opinion  to  carry  it  successfully  into  effect  j  but  they 
at  the  same  time  contend,  in  a  manner  that  leaves  no 
hope  of  a  mitigation  of  the  practice,  that  there  is  no 
other  commodious  or  feasible  rule.  This  is  thought 
fully  dispensing  with  the  constitution  as  visionary  and 
impracticable.  It  is  true  that  the  constitutional  method 
might  sometimes  put  party  prevalence  in  jeopardy  ;  I 
admit  the  possibility,  but  if  this  were  an  evil,  it  should 
be  remembered,  that  national  freedom  may  best  be 
maintained  by  an  alternate  succession  to  power  of  the 
rival  parties. 


DEDICATION.  xv 

By  executive  management,  by  party  obedience,  by 
that  inordinate  love  of  popularity  and  place  which 
characterize  the  more  intelligent  part  of  our  citizens, 
the  constitution  has  suffered  a  severe  shock,  and  you, 
venerable  patriot,  who  were  the  choice  of  the  people 
for  the  presidency,  have  been  deprived  of  their  support 
for  that  office. 

You  have  lived,  sir,  to  see  two  revolutions  ;  one 
from  a  monarchy  to  a  republick  ;  the  other  from  a  re- 
publick  to  something  very  like  a  monarchy.  In  the  first 
you  acted,  acted  nobly ;  in  the  second,  you  and  the 
nation  have  been  acted  upon ;  acted  upon  unworthily. 

Perhaps  there  never  was  a  nation,  enjoying  lights  like 
those  of  the  present  age,  and  possessing  a  government 
whose  elements  are  free,  which  in  so  short  a  period 
after  its  establishment  was  in  such  imminent  danger 
of  losing  its  freedom. 

In  other  nations,  governments,  by  force  or  by  fraud, 
have  abridged  the  liberty  of  the  people,  but,  dividing 
ourselves  into  two  parties,  each  more  intent  upon  its 
preservation  against  the  other  than  watchful  over  the 
liberties  of  the  whole,  we  knowingly  recede  from 
freedom,  and  offer  our  necks  for  the  yoke. 

Every  thing  is  inverted.  Party  is  not  modelled  by 
the  constitution,  nor  does  it  yield  to  its  force.  If  the 
preservation  of  constitutional  principles  be  incompati- 
Igk  with  the  maintenance  of  party  maxims,  drawn  from 


XVI  DEDICATION. 

party  animosity,  from  party  struggles,  from  party  con 
venience,  of  which  the  personal  aggrandizement  of  «. 
few  demagogues  is  the  main  spring,  constitutional  prin 
ciples  are  no  longer  estimable.  That  a  .retiring  national 
executive,  co-operating  with  expectant  members  of 
congress,  should  avail  themselves  of  this  delirium  to 
impose  upon  the  nation  a  president  of  their  own  choice, 
suiting  their  own  views,  answering  their  own  purposes, 
can  excite  no  surprise.  A  people  that  invites  slavery 
cannot  long  be  free. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

With  the  greatest  respect, 
Your  most  obedient 
Jlumble  servant, 

JAMES  CHEETHAM* 

New-York,  October,  1809. 


PREFACE. 


TWO  lives  of  Mr.  Paine  have  been  published ; 
one  by  "  Francis  Oldys,  of  Philadelphia,"  a  large 
octavo  pamphlet,  printed  by  Stockdale,  London, 
1792;*  and  an  "  Impartial  Sketch,"  an  anony 
mous  pamphlet  of  ten  pages,  published  by  T. 
Brown,  Drury-Lane,  in  the  same  year.  To  these 
may  be  added  a  continuation  of  Oldys's  Life,  by 
William  Cobbett,  Philadelphia,  1796. 

Francis  Oldys  is,  I  believe,  a  fictitious  name  ; 
"  of  Philadelphia,"  was  probably  subjoined  to  give 
interest  and  authenticity  to  the  work.  The 
French  revolution,  that  terrible  concussion  which 
had  perniciously  affected  all  Europe,  and  parti- 


*I  have  not  seen  a  London  copy  of  Oldys'sLife,  nor  is  there 
one  either  in  our  bookstores  or  in  our  city  library.  Mr.  Cob 
bett  says,  that  it  was  published  in  London  in  1793,  but  as  the 
*'  Impartial  Sketch,"  which  was  avowedly  written  to  correct 
some  of  the  extravagancies  of  Oldys,  bears  upon  its  title-page 
the  London  imprint  of  1792,  I  conclude  from  that  circum 
stance,  and  from  Paine's  Rights  of  Man,  part  second,  having 
been  published  in  February  of  the  same  year,  that  Mr.  Cobbett 
was  mistaken  in  the  date. 

G 


xviii  PREFACE. 

cularly  England,  had  prepared  the  clubs  for  the 
unhinging  doctrines  of  the  "  Rights  of  Man." 
Never  did  the  parched  earth  receive  refreshing 
rain  with  more  welcome,  than  that  with  which 
the  revolutionary  people  of  England  admitted 
amongst  them  the  tumultuous  writings  of  Paine. 
To  that  which  was  his  object ;  to  commotion,  to 
the  overthrow  of  the  government,  and  to  blood 
shed,  in  all  its  horrid  forms,  they  were  rapidly 
hastening.  Thus  predisposed,  the  cordiality  and 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  first  part  of  the  Rights 
of  Man  was  greeted,  although  flattering  to  the 
vanity  and  encouraging  to  the  hopes  of  the  au 
thor,  were  not  surprising.  The  clubs,  zealous  to 
a  degree  of  frenzy  j  always  vigil ent,  always  alert, 
published  a  groat  edition  of  thirty  thousand  co 
pies  of  the  work,  which  was  distributed  amongst 
the  poor,  who  could  not  afford  to  purchase.  In 
the  great  manufacturing  towns,  Paine  was  consi 
dered  by  the  ignorant  as  an  apostle  of  freedom.* 
The  government,  alarmed,  knew  not  how  to  meet 
the  evil.t  BURKE  did,  however,  by  his  successive 


*  A  song  was  privately  circuited,  beginning  with— 
God  save  great  Thomas  Paine, 
His  Rights  of  Man  proclaim, 
From  Pole  to  Pole  ! 


•)•  Mr.  Burke,  alluding  to  the  language  of  the  .ga^inet,  says, 
"  But  I  hear  a  language  still  more  extraordinary,  and  indeed 


PREFACE,  XIX 

and  impressive  appeals,  animate  them  to  precau 
tionary  measures.  In  these,  Oldys'slife  may,  I 
think,  be  included.  To  deprive  Paine  of  the  mo 
mentary  and  undeserved  popularity  which  he  had 
acquired  amongst  the  illiterate,  whose  passions 
were  to  have  been  worked  up  to  a  revolutionary 
pitch,  was  no  doubt  esteemed  by  the  cabinet  an 
object  of  some  importance.  To  effect  this  pur 
pose,  Oldys's  life  was  written ;  and  perhaps  I  am 
not  mistaken  in  ascribing  it  to  the  agency  of  the 
ministry.  With  many  facts,  such  as  Fame's  birth, 
his  education,  his  employment  in  the  excise,  his 
dismission  from  it,  and  his  separation  from  his 
wife,  are  mingled  more  misrepresentations  and 
distortions.  On  a  work  so  evidently  of  a  party 
nature,  one  cannot  implicitly  draw. 

The  "  Impartial  Sketch,"  written  by  a  friend 
of  Paine,  is  not  worthy  of  particular  remark.  Id 
is  a  compilation  from  such  parts  of  Oldys's  narra 
tive  as  suited  the  views  of  the  writer,  stripped  of 
Oldys's  exaggerations. 

Mr.  Cobbett's  is  really  a  continuation  of  Oldys's 
life.  His  superadditions  are  in  the  spirit  of  the 


of  such  a  nature  as  must  suppose  or  leave  us  at  their  mercy. 
It  is  this  ;  "  you  know  their  promptitude  in  writing,  and  their 
diligence  in  caballing :  to  write,  speak,  or  act  against  them, 
will  only  stimulate  them  to  new  efforts."  Appeal  from  the 
new  to  the  old  whigs. 


XX  PREFACE. 

original.  His  vigourous  pen  was  wielded  against 
Paine  by  passions  yet  more  vigourous.  Roused 
by  the  confusion  which  the  author  of  the  "  Age 
of  Reason"  was  endeavouring  to  raise  all  over 
the  world,  and  dreading  the  prevalence  of  it  in 
the  United  States,  he  censured  to  excess ;  cen 
sured,  perhaps,  without  judgment,  censuring  with 
out  discrimination. 

My  information  respecting  Paine  before  he  left 
England  in  1774,  is  derived  from  persons  who 
knew  him  when  he  was  a  boy — when  he  was  at 
school — when  he  worked  with  his  father  at  stay- 
making — when  he  was  in  the  excise — when  he 
was  married,  and  when  he  separated  from  his 
wife  :  much  of  this  agrees  with  Oldys's  facts  re 
ferring  to  the  same  time. 

Of  his  career  in  the  colonies  after  his  arrival  in 
1774,  my  sources  of  information,  in  addition  to 
the  journals  of  congress,  histories  of  the  revolu 
tionary  war,  &c.  are  gentlemen  of  the  highest  po 
litical  standing,  several  of  whom  were  members 
of  the  revolutionary  congress. 

When  the  Rights  of  Man  was  first  published,  I 
was  in  England,  involved  in  politicks,  and  tolera- 
f  bly  well  acquainted  with  political  parties. 

Respecting  the  conduct  of  Paine  while  in  Pa 
ris,  I  draw  the  chief  part  of  my  information  from 
notorious  facts :  and  gentlemen  equally  distin 
guished  in  diplomacy  and  in  literature,  have  fa 
voured  me  with  their  correspondence.  t 


PREFACE.  2UU 

After  his  return  to  the  United  States  from 
France,  I  became  acquainted  with  him  on  hu  ar 
rival  in  New- York,  in  the  year  1 802.     He  intro 
duced  himself  to  me  by  letter  from  Washington 
City,  requesting  me  to  take  lodgings  for  him  in 
New- York.     I  accordingly  engaged  a  room  in  Lo- 
vett's  Hotel,  supposing  him  to  be  a  gentleman,  and 
apprised  him  of   the  number.     On  his  arrival, 
about  ten  at  night,  he  wrote  me  a  note  desiring 
to  see  me  immediately.     I  waited  on  him  at  Lo- 
vett's,  in  company  with  Mr.  George  Clinton,  jun. 
We  rapped  at  the  door :  a  small  figure  opened  it 
within,  meanly  dressed,  having  on  an  old  top  coat 
without  an  under  one ;  a  dirty  silk  handkerchief, 
loosely  thrown  round  his  neck  ;  a  long  beard  of 
more  than  a  week's  growth ;  a  face,  well  car- 
bunckled,  fiery  as  the  setting  sun,*  and  the  whole 
figure  staggering  under  a  load  of  inebriation.     I 
was  on  the  point  of  inquiring  for  Mr.  Paine,  when 
I  saw  in  his  countenance  something  of  the  por 
traits  I  had  seen  of  him.     We  were  desired  to  be 
seated.     He  had  before  him  a  small  round  table, 
on  which  were  a  beef-stake,  some  beer,  a  pint  of 
brandy,  a  pitcher  of  water,  and  a  glass.     He  sat 
eating,  drinking,  and  talking,  with  as  much  com 
posure  as  if  he  had  lived  with  us  all  his  life.    I 


*  Falstaff's  description  of  Bardolph's  nose,  would  have  suit 
ed  Paine's. 


XX11  PREFACE. 

soon  perceived  that  he  had  a  very  retentive  memo 
ry,  and  was  full  of  anecdote.  The  Bishop  of 
Landaff  was  almost  the  first  word  he  uttered,  arid 
it  was  followed  by  informing  us,  that  he  had  in 
his  trunk  a  manuscript  reply  to  the  Bishop's  Apo 
logy.  He  then,  calmly  mumbling  his  stake,  and 
ever  and  anon  drinking  his  brandy  and  beer,  re 
peated  the  introduction  to  his  reply,  which  occu 
pied  him  near  half  an  hour.  This  was  done  with 
deliberation,  the  utmost  clearness,  and  a  perfect 
apprehension,  intoxicated  as  he  was,  of  all  that  he 
repeated.  Scarcely  a  word  would  he  allow  us  to 
speak.  He  always,  I  afterwards  found,  in  all 
companies,  drunk  or  sober,  wrould  be  listened  to, 
but  in  this  regard  there  were  no  rights  of  men  with 
him,  no  equality,  no  reciprocal  immunities  and 
obligations,  for  he  would  listen  to  no  one.  Hav 
ing  repeated  the  introduction  to  his  manuscript 
reply,  he  gave  us  the  substance  of  the  reply  itself. 
He  then  recited  from  memory,  in  a  voice  very 
plaintive,  some  Asiatick  lines,  as  specimens  of 
morality  equalling  at  least  the  sublime  doctrines 
of  the  New  Testament.  He  had  read  but  little 
in  the  course  of  his  life,  much  less  than  may  have 
been  supposed,  but  that  little  he  had  sorted,  laid 
up  in  his  intellectual  store-house  with  care,  and 
could  deal  it  out  with  a  facility  and  discrimina 
tion,  which,  however  hated  or  despised,  or  on 
whatever  account,  was  truly  admirable. 


PREFACE.  XXlli 

My  acquaintance  with  him  continued,  with 
very  various  views,  two  or  three  years.  My  in 
tercourse  with  him  was  more  frequent  than  agree- 
ble,  but  what  I  suffered  in  feeling  from  his  want 
of  good  manners,  his  dogmatism,  the  tyranny  of 
his  opinions,  his  peevishness,  his  intemperance, 
and  the  low  company  he  kept,  was  perhaps  com 
pensated  by  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the  man. 
The  latter  part  of  his  life  was  spent  in  the  city  of 
New- York,  in  a  great  measure  under  my  own 
eye,  but  I  have  yet  made  particular  inquiries  of 
the  persons  in  whose  houses  he  successively  lived, 
as  to  his  manner  of  living,  his  temper,  and  his 
habits.  The  facts  respecting  his  death  and  burial, 
and  the  opinions  which  he  obstinately  maintained 
on  his  death-bed,  I  have  from  a  sensible  and  hu 
mane  Quaker  gentleman ;  from  Doctor  Manley, 
his  kind  and  attending  physician,  and  from  his 
nurse,  a  woman  of  intelligence  and  piety. 

The  object  of  my  labour  is  neither  to  please 
nor  to  displease  any  political  party.  I  have  writ 
ten  the  life  of  Mr.  Paine,  not  his  panegyrick. 


LIFE,  &c. 


OVER  families  not  distinguished  by  birth,  by 
fortune,  or  by  extraordinary  talent,  time  throws 
an  obscurity  that  cannot  be  removed.  Of  the 
grand-parents  of  Mr.  Paine*  we  know  4ittle ;  of 
his  ancestors  still  more  remote,  nothing.  It  is  in 
timated,  possibly  as  imparting  respectability,  that 
his  grand  father  was  a  small  but  respectable  far 
mer.^) 

His  father,  who  bore  a  good  character,  was  a 
staymaker  by  trade,  and  a  Quaker  by  religion. 
His  mother,  the  daughter  of  a  country  attorney, 
was  of  the  Church  of  England. 

THOMAS  PAINE  was  born  at  Thetford,  in  the 
county  of  Norfolk,  England,  in  January,  1737. 
Whether  he  was  baptised  or  not,  is  uncertain. 
Oldys  affirms,  that,  probably  owing  to  a  religious 
disagreement  between  his  parents,  he  was  not,  but 
that,  through  the  care  of  his  aunt,  he  was  confirm 
ed  at  the  customary  age  by  the  bishop  of  Norwich. 


(«)  Impartial  Sketch.. 

P 


26  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

The  penury  of  his  parents  did  not  enable  them 
to  give  him  a  college  education.  He  was  taught 
reading,  writing,  and  arithmetick,  at  the  Thet- 
ford  free  school,  under  the  care  Qf  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Knowles.(/>)  His  education  was  merely  and  scan 
tily  English.  He  left  school  at  the  age  of  thir 
teen.  The  few  ordinary  Latin  phrases  which  we 
meet  with  in  his  works,  he  picked  up  when  he 
found  them  either  convenient  or  ostentatious,  (c) 

From  school  he  was  taken  to  his  father's  shop- 
board,  where  he  was  taught  staymaking.  He 
worked  with  his  father  several  years  :  Oldys  and 
the  Impartial  Sketch  say  five,  (d) 

From  his  father's,  perhaps  without  his  father's 
permission,  he  went,  when  sixteen,  to  London, 

(£)  "  My  parents  were  not  able  to  give  me  a  shilling  beyond 
what  they  gave  me  in  education,  and  to  do  this  they  distressed 
themselves."  Rights  of  Man,  part  2. 

(c)  He  was,  however,  of  opinion,  towards  the  close  of  his 
life,  that  the  old  languages  are  superfluous.  "  As  there  is  now 
nothing  new  to  be  learned  from  the  dead  languages,  all  the  use 
ful  books  being  already  translated,  the  languages  are  become 
useless,  and  the  time  expended  in  teaching  and  learning  them 
is  wasted."  Age  of  Reason,  part  1. 

(c?)  "  When  little  more  than  sixteen  years  of  age,  I  entered 
on  board  the  Terrible  Privateer,  Captain  Death." — Rights  of 
Man,  part  2.  Oldys  remarks,  that  the  Terrible  "  was 
not  fitted  out  till  some  years  afterwards  ;"  but  it  is  probable 
that  Paine's  statement  is  correct,  and  if  it  be,  he  could  not 
Have  worked  with  his  father  more  than  two  or  three  years. 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  27 

whither  Scotchmen  and  provincial  adventurous 
English  flock  to  make  or  mar  their  fortunes. 
But  necessity  obliged  him  to  work  a  few  weeks 
at  his  trade,  with  a  Mr.  Morris,  a  staymaker,  in 
Hanover  street.  From  London  he  journeyed  to 
Dover,  where  he  worked  at  staymaking  with  a 
Mr.  Grace. 

About  this  time  he  entered  on  board  the  Ter 
rible,^)  from  which  adventure,  he  observes,  "  I 
was  happily  prevented  by  the  affectionate  and 
moral  remonstrance  of  a  good  father,  who  from 
his  own  habits  of  life,  being  of  the  quaker  pro 
fession,  must  begin  to  look  upon  me  as  lost."(/) 

The  effects  of  the  moral  remonstrance  were 
not,  however,  durable.  Disliking  his  trade,  we 
may  presume,  he  soon  after  entered  in  the  "  King 
of  Prussia  privateer,  and  went  to  sea."(^)  How 
long  he  was  at  sea,  or  what  the  fruits  of  his  cruise 
were,  wre  do  not  learn.  Brave  in  political  war 
fare  at  his  desk,  he  was  not  made  to  seek  the  bub 
ble  reputation  in  the  canno?i>s  mouth. 

In  the  year  1 759,  he  settled  at  Sandwich,  as  a 
master  staymaker.(/z) 


(e)  Paine's  Conversation. 
(/)  Rights  of  Man,  part  2. 
(5*)  Rights  of  Man,  part  2. 

(h)  Oldys  asserts,   that  ten  pounds  which  he  had  borrowed 
of  Miss  Grace  upon  a  promise  of  marriage,  daughter  of  Mr, 


28  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PATNE. 

At  Sandwich  he  married  Mary  Lambert, 
daughter  of  an  exciseman,  who  shortly  after  went 
with  him  to  Margate,  where,  in  the  year  1  760, 
she  died.(V)  From  Margate  he  went  to  London> 
and  from  London  to  his  father's,  at  Thetford. 

Perhaps  his  marriage  with  Miss  Lambert  led 
him  to  wish  for  a  place  in  the  excise,  which,  aid 
ed  by  the  recorder  of  Thetford,  he  obtained,  af 
ter  much  preparatory  study  for  it,  in  the  year 
1761.  It  is  not  probable  that  the  recorder  would 
have  used  his  influence  for  him,  if  his  conduct  to 
wards  his  wife  had  been  as  atrocious  as  Oldys  rep 
resents  it.  I  am  right  in  this  conclusion,  or  the 
recorder  could  not  have  been  acquainted  with 
him,  a  circumstance  which  is  not  probable. 

He  retained  his  station  in  the  excise  until  Au 
gust,  1765,  when,  being  guilty,  Oldys  says,  of 
scandalous  misconduct,  he  was  dismissed  from  the 
office.  The  same  author  admits  that  he  was  re 
stored  to  the  excise  the  following  year.  This  res 
toration  does,  I  think,  disprove  that  fact.  If  he 
had  been  dismissed  for  gross  misconduct,  it  is  not 


Grace,  fctaymaker,  of  Dover,  with  whom  he  had  worked,  en 
abled  him  to  commence  business,  but  that  he  neither  repaid 
the  money  nor  married  the  girl.  He  adds,  that  at  Sandwich, 
Paine  preached  at  his  lodgings  as  an  independent  minister. 

(/)  Oldys  insinuates  that  she  died  of  a  premature  birth,  oo 
'easioned  by  ill  usage. 


LIFE  OF  THOMAS   PAINE.  29 

probable  that  he  would  have  been  restored.  The 
offence  was  no  doubt  a  venial  one.  During  his 
dismission,  he  resided  in  London,  where  he  taught 
English,  in  an  Academy,  at  a  salary  of  twenty- 
jfive  pounds  a  year. 

In  March,  1 768,  he  was  stationed  as  an  excise 
man  at  Lewes,  in  Sussex,  where  he  lived  with 
Samuel  Ollive,  grocer  and  tobacconist.  Mr.  Ol- 
live  died  the  following  year.  Shortly  after  his 
death,  Paine,  probably  with  the  approbation  of 
his  widow  and  daughter,  opened  the  grocery  and 
worked  the  tobacco  mill,  in  his  own  name.  In 
1771,  he  married  ELIZABETH  OLLIVE,  daughter  of 
Samuel. 

It  is  mentioned  that  he  this  year  wrote  an  elec 
tioneering  song  for  one  of  the  candidates  for  the 
honour  of  representing  New-Shoreham,  in  parlia 
ment,  for  which  he  got  three  guineas,  and  that  in 
the  next  year  he  wrote  the  case(&)  of  the  ex 
cisemen,  who,  united  throughout  the  kingdom, 
were  applying  for  an  increase  of  salary.  Whe 
ther  the  song  and  the  case  were  written  by  him  or 
not,  is  very  problematical.  In  the  Crisis,  No.  3, 
he  says : — "  I  never  troubled  others  with  my  no 
tions  till  very  lately,  and  never  published  a  sylla 
ble  in  England  in  my  life ;"  but  he  was  not  al 
ways  veracious. 

(£)  Said  to  be  an  octavo  Pamphlet,  of  21  pages* 


30  LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

In  April,  1774,  sinking  under  accumulated  mis 
fortunes,  the  effects  of  his  shop  were  sold  to  pay 
his  debts.  In  the  same  month,  having  dealt  as  a 
grocer  in  exciseable  articles,  and  being  suspected, 
I  know  not  how  justly,  of  mal-practices  in  the  ex 
cise,^)  he  was  a  second  time  dismissed.  He  pe 
titioned  to  be  restored,  but  without  success. 

In  May  of  the  same  year,  Paine  and  his  wife 
entered  into  articles  of  separation,  which,  in  the 
following  June,  probably  in  consequence  of  a  de 
fect  in  formality,  were  redrawn.(#z) 


^        (/)  Oldys  says,  that  availing  himself  of  his  place  in  the  ex- 
cisc,  he  smuggled  tobacco  for  the  use  of  his  mill. 

(/tt)  Mr.  Carver,  of  this  city,  who  when  a  boy  went  to  school 
1  with  Miss  Ollive,  and  was  well  acquainted  with  her  and  Paine 
when  they  were  married,  relates  to  me,  as  having  -been  no 
torious  in  Lewes,  the  following  extraordinary  fact.  From  some 
cause  which  Paine  would  not  explain,  and  which  is  yet  unas 
certained,  he  never,  Mr.  Carver  affirms,  had  sexual  inter 
course  with  his  wife.  This  almost  incredible  circumstance, 
which  became  the  subject  of  the  borough  conversation,  Mr. 
Carver  adds,  was  stated  by  Mrs.  Paine  in  answer  to  a  ques 
tion  which  had  been  put  to  her  by  her  friend,  Mrs.  Tibott,  on 
observing,  some  weeks  after  their  marriage,  the  gloominess 
cf  her  mind.  Despised  by  the  women,  jeered  by  the  men, 
and  charged  with  a  want  of  virility,  Paine  submitted,  Mr. 
Carver  continues,  to  a  professional  scrutiny.  He  was  exam- 
+  ined  by  Doctors  Turner,  Ridge,  and  Manning,  who  pro- 
*  nounced  that  there  was  no  natural  defect.  On  Doctor  Tur 
ner's  inquiring  into  the  cause  of  his  abstinence,  Paine  answer 
ed,  that  it  was  no  body's  business  but  his  own ;  that  he  had 


LIFE  OF  THOMAS   PAINE.  31 

His  little  property  having  been  sold — himself  a 
second  time  dismissed  from  the  excise — the  sepa 
ration  from  his  wife  completed,  and  being  reduced 
almost  to  beggary,  Paine,  in  want  of  every  thing 
that  makes  life  agreeable,  travelled,  mournfully 
no  doubt,  from  Lewes  to  London.  What  he  had 
recourse  to  in  the  metropolis  for  a  livelihood,  nei 
ther  Oldys  nor  the  Impartial  Sketch  offers  a  con 
jecture,  but  a  member  of  the  revolutionary  con 
gress  told  me,  that  when  Dr.  Franklin  first  knew 
him,  which  was  about  the  middle  of  the  year 
1 774,  he  was  a  garret  writer.  In  this  situation, 
he  procured  an  introduction  to  Dr.  Franklin,  who 
advised  him  to  goto  America. (/z)  He  accord- 


cause  for  it,  but  that  he  would  not  name  it  to  any  one.  It  ap 
pears  that  he  accompanied  his  wife  from  the  altar,  but  that, 
though  they  lived  in  the  same  house  for  three  years  after 
their  marriage,  they  had  from  the  day  of  their  nuptials  se 
parate  beds,  and  never  cohabited  together.  Of  these  facts 
Mr.  Carver  has  offered  me  an  affidavit,  but  I  have  thought  it 
unnecessary.  He  stated  them  all  to  Paine  in  a  private  letter 
which  he  wrote  to  him  about  a  year  before  his  death;  to  which 
no  answer  was  returned  :  Mr.  Carver  showed  me  the  letter 
soon  after  it  was  written. 

Paine  lived  with  Mr.  Carver  in  this  city  :  they  were  bosom 
friends.  Mr.  Carver  kept  his  company  three  or  four  years, 
which  was  perhaps  as  long  as  any  body  could  keep  it. 

f/z)  "  The  favour  of  Dr.  Franklin's  friendship  I  possessed 
in  England,  and  my  introduction  to  this  part  of  the  world,  was 
through  his  patronage."  Crisis,  No.  S. 


62  LIFE  OF   THOMAS  PAINE. 

ingly  sailed  from  England  in  September,  1774, 
and  arrived  at  Philadelphia  just  before  the  affair 
at  Lexington,  which  happened  April  19,  1775.(o) 
Here  his  political  career  commences.  While  in 
England,  we  find  him  struggling,  indeed,  with 
poverty,  but,  with  regard  to  politicks,  not  at  all 
discontented.(/>)  No  opposition  is  mentioned  ei 
ther  by  his  partial  or  his  impartial  biographer. 
Nor  did  he,  if  in  conversation  he  ever  recurred  to 
this  infelicitous  period  of  his  life,  speak  of  him 
self  as  having  meddled  with  government.^)  His 


(o)  "  It  was  my  fate  to  come  to  America  a  few  months  be 
fore  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities."  Crisis,  No.  T. 

(/i)  "  I  had  no  disposition  for  what  was  called  politicks." — . 
Age  of  Reason,  part  1,  p.  66,  New- York,  1795.  He  alludes 
to  the  time  when  he  was  a  second  time  dismissed  from  the 
excise. 

(g}  The  following  anecdote,  which  in  conversation  he  re 
lated  himself,  first  turned  his  thoughts,  he  remarked,  to  gov 
ernment,  "  After  playing  at  Bowls,  at  Lewes,  retiring  to 
drink  some  punch,  Mr.  Verril,  one  of  the  Bowlers,  observed, 
alluding  to  the  wars  of  Frederick,  that  the  king  of  Prussia 
was  the  best  fellow  in  the  world  for  a  king,  he  had  so  much 
of  the  devil  in  him.  This,  striking  me  with  great  force,  occa 
sioned  the  reflection,  that  if  it  were  necessary  for  a  king  to 
have  so  much  of  the  devil  in  him,  kings  might  very  benefi 
cially  be  dispensed  with." 

The  thought  was  not,  however,  in  England,  followed  up  by 
action.  There >  he  was  neither  a  ministerialist  nor  an  anti- 
ministerialist.  Whenever  he  turned  his  attention  to  govern- 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  83 

only  opposition  to  it  seems  to  have  been  that  of  an 
exciseman,  who  naturally  enough  wanted  addi 
tional  pay.  If  he  had  been  reinstated  in  the  ex 
cise  after  his  second  dismission,  and  could  have 
retained  his  place,  it  is  probable  that  he  would 
have  lived  and  died  in  his  native  land.  But  he 
was  abandoned,  it  may  be  said,  by  man  and  wo 
man,  and  he  did  well  to  change  the  scene.  Eng 
land  had  no  longer  any  enjoyment  for  him.  Poor, 
resourceless,  and  almost  without  hope,  from  go 
vernment  he  expected  nothing,  and  if  he  turned 
his  thoughts  upon  his  wife,  upon  that  which  should 
have  been  his  home,  and  upon  all  their  endear 
ing  and  inappreciable  ties,  what  would  have  been 
his  feelings  had  he  possessed  the  ordinary  sensi 
bility  of  an  ordinary  man  ? 

His  first  engagement  in  Philadelphia  was  with 
Mr.  Aitkin,  a  reputable  Bookseller.  In  January, 
1775,  Mr.  Aitkin  commenced  the  publication  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Magazine,  and  Paine's  business 
was  to  edit  it.  His  introduction  to  the  Magazine, 
dated  January  24th,  1775,  is  thus  concluded  : 

"  Thus  encompassed  with  difficulties,  this  first 
number  of  the  Pennsylvania  Magazine  entreats  a 


ment,  it  was  only  for  a  place,  or  for  an  increase  of  the  salary 
of  that  which  he  held  :  he  was  thirty  seven  when  he  left  Eng 
land. 


34  LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

favourable  reception  ;  of  which  we  shall  only  say, 
[that,]  like  the  early  snow  drop,  it  comes  forth  in 
a  barren  season,  and  contents  itself  with  fore 
telling,  that  CHOICER  FLOWERS  are  preparing  to  ap 
pear." 

To  the  politeness  of  Dr.  Rush,  of  Philadelphia, 
who  was  a  member  of  the  memorable  congress, 
which,  on  the  4th  July,  1776,  declared  the  colo 
nies  "  Free  and  Independent  States,"  I  am  in 
debted  for  the  following  interesting  letter. 

"Philadelphia,  July  \lth,  1809. 
«  SIR, 

"  In  compliance  with  your  request,  I  send  you 
herewith,  answers  to  your  questions  relative  to 
the  late  Thomas  Paine. 

"  He  came  to  Philadelphia  about  the  year 
1772,(r)  with  a  short  letter  of  introduction  from 
Dr.  Franklin  to  one  of  his  friends.  His  design 
was  to  open  a  school  for  the  instruction  of  young 
ladies  in  several  branches  of  knowledge,  which, 
at  that  time,  were  seldom  taught  in  the  female 
schools  of  our  country. 

"  About  the  year  1 773,(Y)  I  met  him  acciden 
tally  in  Mr.  Aitkin's  bookstore,  and  was  introdu 
ced  to  him  by  Mr.  Aitkin,  We  conversed  a  few 


(r)  .Dr.  Rush  is  mistaken.    It  was  1774.      (s)  1775. 


JUFE   OF   THOMAS  PAINE.  35 

minutes,  when  I  left  him.  Soon  afterwards  I  read 
«,  short  essay  with  which  I  was  much  pleased,  in 
one  of  Bradford's  papers,  against  the  slavery 
of  the  Africans  in  our  country,  and  which  1  was 
informed  was  written  by  Mr.  Paine.  This  exci 
ted  my  desire  to  be  better  acquainted  with  him. 
We  met  soon  afterwards  in  Mr.  Aitkin's  book 
store,  where  I  did  homage  to  his  principles  and 
pen  upon  the  subject  of  the  enslaved  Africans. 
He  told  me  the  essay  to  which  I  alluded,  was  the 
first  thing  he  had  ever  published  in  his  life.  Af 
ter  this  Mr.  Aitkin  employed  him  as  the  editor  of 
his  Magazine,  with  a  salary  of  fifty  pounds  cur 
rency  a  year.  This  work  was  well  supported  by 
him.  His  song  upon  the  death  of  Gen.  \\ohe,  (t) 
and  his  reflections  upon  the  death  of  Lord  Clive, 


(?)  I  have  procured  this  beautiful  Song,  and  as  some  ground 
less  doubts  have  been  expressed  whether  or  no  Paine  was  the 
author  of  it,  I  will  here  insert  it. 

GENERAL  WOLFE. 

IN  a  mouldering  cave  where  the  wretched  retreat 

Britannia  sat  wasted  with  care  ; 
She  mourn'd  for  her  Wolfe,  and  exclaim'd  against  fate, 

And  gave  herself  up  to  despair  : 
The  walls  of  her  cell  she  had  sculptur'd  around 

With  the  feats  of  her  favourite  son  ; 
And  even  the  dust  as  it  lay  on  the  ground 

Was  engrav'd  with  some  deeds  he.  had  done. 


3t>  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAItfE. 

gave  it  a  sudden  currency  which  few  works  of 
that  kind  have  since  had  in  our  country. 

"  When  the  subject  of  American  Independence 
began  to  be  agitated  in  conversation,  I  observed  the 
publick  mind  to  be  loaded  with  an  immense  mass 
of  prejudice  and  error  relative  to  it.  Something 
appeared  to  be  wanting,  to  remove  them,  beyond 


The  sire  of  the  gods  from  his  Crystalline  throne 

Beheld  the  disconsolate  Dame  ; 
And  mov'd  with  her  tears  he  sent  Mercury  down 

And  these  were  the  Tidings  that  came  : 
Britannia,  forbear,   not  a  sigh  or  a  tear 

For  thy  Wolfe,  so  deservedly  lov'd  ; 
Your  tears  shall  be  chang'd  into  triumphs  of  joy, 

For  Wolfe  is  not  dead,  but  remov'd. 

The  sons  of  the  east,  the  proud  giants  of  old, 

Have  crept  from  their  darksome  abodes  ; 
And  this  is  the  news,  as  in  Heav'n  it  was  told, 

They  were  Marching  to  War  with  the  Gods  ; 
A  Council  was  held  in  the  Chambers  of  Jove 

And  this  was  their  final  decree  : 
That  Wolfe  should  be  call'd  to  the  Army  above, 

And  the  charge  was  intrusted  to  me. 

To  the  plains  of  Quebec  with  the  orders  I  flew, 

He  begg'd  for  a  moment's  delay ; 
He  cry'd,  oh  forbear,  let  me  Victory  hear, 

And  then  thy  command  I'll  obey  : 
With  a  darksome  thick  film  I  encompass'd  his  eyes 

And  bore  him  away  in  an  urn  ; 
Lest  the  fondness  he  bore  to  his  own  native  shore 

Should  induce  him  again  to  return. 


LIFE "  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  37 

the  ordinary  short  and  cold  addresses  of  newspa-  ^ 
per  publications.  At  this  time  I  called  upon  Mr,  " 
Paine  and  suggested  to  him  the  propriety  of  pre 
paring  our  citizens  for  a  perpetual  separation  of 
our  country  from  Great  Britain,  by  means  of  a 
work  of  such  length  as  would  obviate  all  the  ob 
jections  to  it.  He  seized  the  idea  with  avidity, 
and  immediately  began  his  famous  pamphlet  in 
favour  of  that  measure.  He  read  the  sheets  to  me 
at  my  house  as  he  composed  them.  When  he 
had  finished  them,  I  advised  him  to  put  them  into 
the  hands  of  Dr.  Franklin,  Samuel  Adams,  and 
the  late  Judge  Wilson,  assuring  him,  at  the  same 
time,  that  they  all  held  the  same  opinions  that  he- 
had  defended.  The  first  of  those  gentlemen  saw 
the  manuscript,  and  I  believe  the  second,  but 
Judge  Wilson  being  from  home  when  Mr.  Paine 
called  upon  him,  it  was  not  subjected  to  his  in 
spection.  No  addition  was  made  to  it  by  Dr. 
Franklin,  but  a  passage  was  struck  out,  or  omit 
ted  in  printing  it,  which  I  conceived  to  be  one  of 
the  most  striking  in  it.  It  W7as  the  following — "  A 
greater  absurdity  cannot  be  conceived  of,  than 
three  millions  of  people  running  to  their  sea  coast 
every  time  a  ship  arrives  from  London,  to  know 
what  portion  of  liberty  they  should  enjoy." 

"  A  title  only  was  wanted  for  this  pamphlet  be 
fore  it  was  committed  to  the  press.  Mr.  Paine 
proposed  to  call  it  "  plain  truth."  I  objected  to  < 


38  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

it  and  suggested  the  title  of  "  Common  Sense." 
This  was  instantly  adapted,  and  nothing  now  re 
mained,  but  to  find  a  printer  who  had  boldness 
enough  to  publish  it.  At  that  time  there  was  a 
certain  Robert  Bell,  an  intelligent  Scotch  booksel 
ler  and  printer  in  Philadelphia,  whom  I  knew  to 
foe  as  high  toned  as  Mr.  Paine  upon  the  subject  of 
American  Independence.  I  mentioned  the  pam 
phlet  to  him,  and  he  at  once  consented  to  run  the 
risk  of  publishing  it.  The  author  and  the  printer 
were  immediately  brought  together,  and  "  Com 
mon  Sense"  bursted  from  the  press  of  the  latter 
in  a  few  days  with  an  effect  which  has  rarely 
been  produced  by  types  and  paper  in  any  age  or 
country. 

"  Between  the  time  of  the  publication  of  this 
pamphlet,  and  the  4th  of  July,  1 776,  Mr.  Paine 
published  a  number  of  essays  in  Mr.  Bradford's 
j,  -  paper,  under  the  signature  of  "  The  Forester,"  in 
defence  of  the  opinions  contained  in  his  Common 
Sense. 

"  In  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1 776,  he  ser 
ved  as  a  volunteer,  in  the  American  army  under 
General  Washington.  Whether  he  received  pay 
and  rations,  I  cannot  tell.  He  lived  a  good  deal 
with  the  officers  of  the  first  rank  in  the  army,  at 
whose  tables  his  "  Common  Sense"  always  made 
him  a  welcome  guest. 

"  The  legislature  of  Pennsylvania  gave  Mr, 


JLIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  89 

Paine  6007.  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the  servi 
ces  he  had  rendered  the  United  States  by  his  pub 
lications. 

"  He  acted  as  clerk  to  the  legislature  of  Penn 
sylvania  about  the  year  1780.  I  do  not  know  the 
compensation  he  received  for  his  services  in  that 
station.  He  acted  for  a  while  as  secretary  of  the 
Secret  Committee  of  Congress,  but  was  dismissed 
by  them  for  publishing  some  of  their  secrets  rela 
tive  to  Mr.  Dean. 

"  Mr.  Paine's  manner  of  life  was  desultory. 
He  often  visited  in  the  families  of  Dr.  Franklin, 
Mr.  Rittenhouse,  and  Mr.  George  Clymer,  where 
he  made  himself  acceptable  by  a  turn  he  discove- 
ed  for  philosophical,  as  well  as  political  subjects. 

"  After  the  year  1776,  my  intercourse  with  Mr. 
Paine  was  casual.  I  met  him  now  and  then  at 
the  tables  of  some  of  our  whig  citizens,  where  he 
spoke  but  little,  but  was  always  inoffensive  in  his 
manner  and  conversation. 

"  I  possess  one  of  his  letters  written  to  me  from 
France  upon  the  subject  of  the  abolition  of  the 
slave  trade.  An  extract  from  it  was  published  in 
the  Columbian  Magazine. 

"  I  did  not  see  Mr.  Paine  when  he  passed 
through  Philadelphia  a  few  years  ago.  His  prin 
ciples,  avowed  in  his  "  Age  of  Reason,"  were  so 
offensive  to  me  that  I  did  not  wish  to  renew  ray 
Intercourse  with  him. 


40  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

"  I  have  thus  briefly  and  in  great  haste  endea 
voured  to  answer  your  questions.     Should  you 
publish  this  letter,  I  beg  my  testimony  against  Mr. 
Paine 's  infidelity  may  not  be  omitted  in  it." 
"  From,  sir, 
"  Yours, 
"  Respectfully, 

«  BENJN.  RUSH. 
"  MR.  CHEETHAM." 

Paine  continued  his  superintendence  of  the 
magazine  several  months.  In  one  of  his  lucu- 

v3 

brations,  adverting  to  the  riches  of  the  earth, 
the  diligence  which  is  necessary  to  discover,  and 
the  labour  to  possess  them,  he  thus  elegantly  in 
vites  us  to  industry  and  research. 

"  Though  nature  is  gay,  polite,  and  generous 
abroad,  she  is  sullen,  rude,  and  niggardly  at 
home  :  Return  the  visit,  and  she  admits  you  with 
all  the  suspicion  of  a  miser,  and  all  the  reluctance 
of  an  antiquated  beauty  retired  to  replenish  her 
charms.  Bred  up  in  antideluvian  notions,  she^ias 
not  yet  acquired  the  European  taste  of  receiving 
visitants  in  her  dressing-room :  She  locks  and 
bolts  up  her  private  recesses  with  extraordinary 
care,  as  if  not  only  resolved  to  preserve  her 
hoards,  but  to  conceal  her  age,  and  hide  the  re 
mains  of  a  face  that  was  young  and  lovely  in  the 
days  of  Adam.  He  that  would  view  nature  in 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

her  undress,  and  partake  of  her  internal  trea 
sures,  must  proceed  with  the  resolution  of  a  rob 
ber,  if  not  a  ravisher.  She  gives  no  invitation  to 
follow  her  to  the  cavern — The  external  earth 
makes  no  proclamation  of  the  interior  stores,  but 
leaves  to  chance  and  industry,  the  discovery  of 
the  whole.  In  such  gifts  as  nature  can  annually 
re-create,  she  is  noble  and  profuse,  and  entertains 
the  whole  wrorld  with  the  interest  of  her  fortunes ; 
but  watches  over  the  capital  with  the  care  of  a 
miser.  Her  gold  and  jewels  lie  concealed  in  the 
earth  in  caves  of  utter  darkness  ;  the  hoards  of 
wealth,  heaps  upon  heaps,  mould  in  the  chests, 
like  the  riches  of  a  necromancer's  cell.  It  must 
be  very  pleasant  to  an  adventurous  speculatist  to 
make  excursions  into  these  Gothic  regions  ;  and 
in  his  travels  he  may  possibly  come  to  a  cabinet 
locked  up  in  some  rocky  vault,  whose  treasures 
shall  reward  his  toil,  and  enable  him  to  shine  on 
his  return,  as  splendidly  as  nature  herself." 

At  what  period  he  left  the  employ  of  Mr.  Ait- 
kin,  who  died  some  years  since,  I  have  not  been 
able  to  ascertain,  but  probably  not  until  early  in 
the  year,  1776. 

Of  the  independence  of  the  colonies,  for  some 
time  after  the  affair  at  Lexington,  few  thought 
and  no  one  wrote.  Here  and  there  it  was  indis 
tinctly  mentioned,  but  no  where  encouraged. 
Never  were  a  people  more  attached  to  a  govern- 

F 


42  LIFE   OP   THOMAS   PAINE, 

ment  and  nation,  than  were  the  colonists  to  the 
v  government  and  people  of  England.  Reconcilia 
tion  so  adjusted  as  to  have  left  them  the  right  of 
granting  their  own  money  by  their  Provincial  As 
semblies,  would  have  been  universally  satisfactory. 
x  There  was  no  wish  for  a  separation ;  none  for  a 
tepublick.  That  indulgence  which  might  have 
been  allowed,  which  was  compatible  with  the 
British  constitution,  and  essential  to  freedom, 
would  have  retained  the  colonies  to  the  Crown, 
we  know  not  how  long,  but  probably  for  a  cen 
tury  at  least.(<v)  In  this  spirit  of  cordial  affection, 
congress,  on  the  8th  of  July,  1 775,  petitioned  the 
king,  most  humbly  imploring  his  majesty  to  de 
vise  some  method  by  which  English  freedom 
might  be  extended  and  secured  to  the  colonies. 


(w)  Alluding  to  the  predominant  wishes  of  the  colonists 
soon  after  his  arrival,  Paine  says  ; — "  I  found  the  disposition 
of  the  people  such,  that  they  might  have  been  led  by  a 
thread,  and  governed  by  a  reed.  Their  attachment  to  Bri 
tain  was  obstinate,  and  it  was  at  that  time  a  kind  of  treason 
to  speak  against  it :  they  disliked  the  ministry,  but  they 
Esteemed  the  nation.  Their  idea  of  grievance  operated  with 
out  resentment,  and  their  single  object  was  reconciliation.1* 
Crisis,  No.  7. 

"  Independence  was  a  doctrine  scarce  and  rare  even  to 
wards  the  conclusion  of  the  year  '75.  All  our  politicks  had 
been  founded  on  the  hope  or  expectation  of  making  the  matter 
up  ;  a  hope,  which  though  general  on  the  side  of  America, 
had  never  entered  the  head  or  heart  of  the  British 
Crisis,  No.  3. 


LIFE  OF  THOMAS  PAINE.  4£ 

4i  Attached,  they  say,  to  your  majesty's  person, 
family,  and  government,  with  all  the  devotion 
which  principle  and  affection  can  inspire ;  con 
nected  with  Great  Britain  by  the  strongest  ties 
that  can  unite  societies,  and  deploring  every  event 
that  tends  in  any  degree  to  weaken  them,  we  sol 
emnly  assure  your  majesty,  that  we  not  only  most 
ardently  desire  the  former  harmony  between  her 
and  these  colonies  may  be  restored,  but  that  a 
concord  may  be  established  between  them  upon 
so  firm  a  basis  as  to  perpetuate  its  blessings,  unin 
terrupted  by  any  future  dissentions,  to  succeeding 
generations  in  both  countries." 

"  We  therefore  beseech  your  majesty,  that  your 
royal  authority  and  influence  may  be  graciously 
interposed  to  procure  us  relief  from  our  afflicting 
fears  and  jealousies,  and  to  settle  peace  through 
every  part  of  your  dominions ;  with  all  humility 
submitting  to  your  majesty's  wise  consideration, 
whether  it  may  not  be  expedient,  for  facilitating 
these  important  purposes,  that  your  majesty  be 
pleased  to  direct  some  mode  by  which  the  united 
applications  of  your  faithful  colonists  to  the 
throne,  may  be  improved  into  a  happy  and  perma 
nent  reconciliation."^) 


(TJ]  Journals  of  Congress. 

Mr.  Burke  has  a  passage  respecting  Dr.  Franklin  which 
evinces  the  Doctor's  attachment  tp  the  British  government, 


44  LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

Congress  directed  the  petition,  on  which  the 
hopes  of  the  colonists  principally  rested,  to  be  pre 
sented  to  the  king  by  Mr.  Penn,  who  was  sent  to 
England  on  purpose,  accompanied  by  the  colony 
agents  residing  in  London.  On  the  first  of  Sep- 


how  strongly  soever  he  may  have  been  opposed  to  some  of  its  acts, 
"What  might  have  been  in  the  secret  thoughts  of  some  of  their 
leaders,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  As  far  as  a  man,  so  locked  up  as 
Dr.  Franklin,  could  be  expected  to  communicate  his  ideas,  I  be 
lieve  he  opened  them  to  Mr.  Burke,  It  was,  I  think,  the  very 
day  before  he  sat  out  for  America,  that  a  very  long  conversa 
tion  passed  between  them,  and  with  a  greater  air  of  openness 
on  the  Doctor's  side  than  Mr.  Burke  had  observed  in  him 
before.  In  this  discourse  Dr.  Franklin  lamented,  and  with  ap 
parent  sincerity,  the  separation  which  he  feared  was  inevita 
ble  between  Great  Britain  and  her  Colonies.  He  certainly 
spoke  of  it  as  an  event  which  gave  him  the  greatest  concern. 
America,  he  said,  would  never  again  see  such  happy  days  as 
she  had  passed  under  the  protection  of  England.  He  observ 
ed,  that  ours  was  the  only  instance  of  a  great  empire, 
in  which  the  most  distant  parts  and  members  had  been  as 
well  governed  as  the  metropolis  and  its  vicinage;  but  that 
the  Americans  were  going  to  lose  the  means  which  secured  to 
them  this  rare  and  precious  advantage.  The  question  with 
them  was  not  whether  they  were  to  remain  as  they  had  been 
before  the  troubles,  for  better,  he  allowed,  they  could  not  hope 
to  be,  but  whether  they  were  to  give  up  so  happy  a  situation 
without  a  struggle  ?  Mr.  Burke  had  several  other  conversa 
tions  with  him  about  that  time,  in  none  of  which,  soured  and 
exasperated  as  his  mind  certainly  was,  did  he  discover  any 
other  wish  in  favour  of  America  than  for  a  security  of  its 
ancient  condition.  "  Appeal  from  the  new  to  the  old  whigs, 
works,  vol.  6,  p.  121-2,  London,  1803. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  45 

tember,  1775,  it  was  presented,  and  on  the  fourth 
of  the  same  month,  Mr.  Penn  was  told,  by  Lord 
Dartmouth,  that  "no  answer  would  be  given  to  it." 

The  king's  haughty  and  contumelious  decision 
was  received  by  congress  at  the  close  of  October, 
and  the  effect  of  it  on  the  colonists  was  inconceiv 
able.  From  the  top  of  expectation  they  were  all 
at  once  precipitated  down  to  the  lowest  abyss  of 
despondency.  All  prospect  of  relief  from  Eng 
land  had  vanished.  With  the  images  of  their 
brethren  slaughtered  at  Lexington  fresh  in  me 
mory,  their  condition  was  a  defenceless  one. 
Called  upon  for  unconditional  submission,  they 
were  menaced  with  military  execution  in  case  of 
disobedience.  Still,  even  now,  few  thought  se 
riously  of  independence.  The  mind  was  over 
powered  by  fear,  rather  than  alive  to  safety. 

Paine,  like  Milton's  vanquished  fiend,  looking 
back  malignantly  on  England  as  a  Paradise  lost 
to  him ;  availing  himself  of  this  awful  pause, 
and  joyously  turning  to  his  account  the  high 
handed  measures  of  an  infatuated  cabinet,  wrote 
his  COMMON  SENSE  ;  probably  in  revenge  for  his 
expulsion  from  the  excise.  This  pamphlet,  of 
forty  octavo  pages, (w)  holding  out  relief  by  pro 
posing  INDEPENDENCE  to  an  oppressed  and  despair- 


Philadelphia  eel.  1797. 


IJFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 


ing  people,  was  published  in  January,  1776.- 
Speaking  a  language  which  the  colonists  had  felt 
but  not  thought,  its  popularity,  terrible  in  its 
consequences  to  the  parent  country,  wras  unex 
ampled  in  the  history  of  the  press.(#)  At  first, 
involving  the  colonists,  it  was  thought,  in  the 
crime  of  rebellion,  and  pointing  to  a  road  leading 
inevitably  to  ruin,  it  was  read  with  indignation 
and  alarm,  but  when  the  reader,  (and  every 
body  read  it)  recovering  from  the  first  shock,  re- 
perused  it,  its  arguments,  nourishing  his  feel 
ings  and  appealing  to  his  pride,  reanimated  his 
hopes  and  satisfied  his  understanding,  that  COM 
MON  SENSE,  backed  by  the  resources  and  force  of 


(.r)  "  Nothing  could  be  better  timed  than  this  performance. 
In  union  with  the  feelings  and  sentiments  of  the  people,  it  pro^- 
duced  surprising  effects.  Many  thousands  were  convinced, 
and  were  led  to  approve  and  long  for  a  separation  from  the 
mother  country:  though  that  measure,  a  few  months  before, 
was  not  only  foreign  from  their  wishes  but  the  object  of  their 
abhorrence,  the  current  suddenly  became  so  strong  in  its  fa^ 
vour  that  it  bore  down  all  before  it."  Ramsay's  Rev.  vol.  1, 
p.  336-7,  London,  1793. 

"  The  publications  which  have  appeared,  have  greatly  pro 
moted  the-  spirit  of  independency,  but  no  one  so  much  as  the 
pamphlet  under  the  signature  of  Common  Sense,  written  by 
Mr.  Thomas  Paine,  an  Englishman.  Nothing  could  have 
been  better  timed  than  this  performance  :  it  has  produced 
most  astonishing  effects."  Gordon's  Rev.  vol.  2,  p.  78.  New- 
York,  1794. 


LIFE  OP   THOMAS   PAINJ6,  47 

V 

the  colonies,  poor  and  feeble  as  they  were,  could 
alone  rescue  them  from  the  unqualified  oppression 
with  which  they  were  threatened.  The  unknown 
author,  in  the  moments  of  enthusiasm  which 
succeeded,  was  hailed  as  an  angel  sent  from 
heaven  to  save  from  all  the  horrours  of  slavery, 
by  his  timely,  powerful,  and  unerring  councils, 
a  faithful,  but  abused,  a  brave,  but  misrepresented 
people,  (y) 

As  a  literary  work,  Common  Sense,  energetic 
ally  as  it  promoted  the  cause  of  independence,  has 
no  merit.  Defective  in  arrangement,  inelegant  in 
diction,  here  and  there  a  sentence  excepted  ;  with 
no  profundity  of  argument,  no  felicity  of  remarkf 
no  extent  of  research,  no  classical  allusion,  nor 
comprehension  of  thought,  it  is  fugitive  in  nature, 
and  cannot  be  appealed  to  as  authority  on  the  sub? 


(t/)  When  Common  Sense  arrived  in  Albany,  the  Conven 
tion  of  New- York  was  in  session.  General  Scott,  a  leading 
Member,  alarmed  at  the  boldness  and  novelty  of  its  argu 
ments,  mentioned  his  fears  to  several  of  his  distinguished  col 
leagues,  and  suggested  a  private  meeting  in  the  evening,  for 
the  purpose  of  writing  an  answer.  They  accordingly  met,  and 
Mr.  Me  Kesson  read  the  pamphlet  through.  At  first  it  was 
deemed  both  necessary  and  expedient  to  answer  it  without 
delay,  but  casting  about  for  the  requisite  arguments,  they 
concluded  to  adjourn  and  meet  again.  In  a  few  evenings 
they  re-assembled,  but  so  rapid  was  the  change  of  opinion  in 
the  colonies  at  large,  in  favour  of  independence,  that  they  ul 
timately  agreed  not  to  oppose  it. 


48  LIFE   OF   THOMAS  PAINE. 

ject  of  government.  Its  distinguishing  charac- 
teristicks  are  boldness  and  zeal ;  low  sarcasm  and 
deep-rooted  malevolence.  It  owed  its  unprece 
dented  popularity,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  British 
cabinet,  which  sought  to  triumph  by  bare-faced 
force  instead  of  generous  measures ;  and,  on  the 
other,  to  the  manly  spirit  of  the  colonists,  which, 
though  often  depressed,  could  not  be  conquered. 

Yet  Paine,  vain  beyond  any  man  I  ever  read 
of,  (z)  or  ever  knew,  was  of  opinion,  in  which  in 
deed  he  was  partly  correct,  that  he  was  not  only 
an  efficacious  agent  in  effecting  the  independence 
of  the  colonies,  the  very  prop  and  stfy  of  the 
ko2/se,  but  that  the  revolution,  of  which  he  was  in 
a  great  measure  the  parent,  "  led  to  the  discovery 
of  the  principles  of  government :"  The  assertion 
was  undoubtedly  a  dictate  of  gross  ignorance. 
"  One  of  the  great  advantages  of  the  American 
revolution  has  been,  that  it  led  to  the  discovery  of 
the  principles,  and  laid  open  the  impositions  of 
government."(V)  He  might  have  correctly  said 
that  it  led,  in  some  respects,  to  a  new  practice* 
but  certainly  no  new  principle  was  discovered. 


(z)  "  I  possess  more  of  what  is  called  consequence  in  the 
world,  than  any  one  in  Mr.  Burke's  catalogue  of  Aristocrats. 
Rights  of  Man,  part  2. 

(ff)  Rights  of  Man,  part  2, 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  49 

But  if  a  new  principle  had  been  discovered,  it 
is  obvious  that  Paine,  the  chief  if  not  the  only 
writer  who  with  success  supported  the  revolution, 
considered  himself  as  a  second  Columbus,  and 
that  as  we  owe  the  discovery  of  the  land  to  the 
genius  of  the  one,  so  we  are  indebted  for  the  prin 
ciple  to  the  researches  of  the  other. 

Common  Sense  treats  of  the  "  origin  and  de 
sign  of  government ;  of  monarchy  and  hereditary 
succession ;  of  the  ability  of  America"  to  become 
independent. 

On  the  first  two  heads,  which  alone  afforded 
scope  for  the  discovery  of  a  new  principle,  he  is 
brief  and  feeble.  He  had,  indeed,  thought  on 
the  subject,  but  not  deeply ;  perhaps  he  had  read, 
though  he  affirms  that  he  had  not.(Z?)  If  this  oe 
so,  as  no  force  of  g  nius  can  adequately  supply 
the  defects  of  study,  so  nj  prooaole  degree  of 
vanity  could  have  flattered  him  with  the  high  ex 
pectation  of  being  ranked  in  history  with  the 
Harringtons,  the  Sydneys,  and  the  Lockes  of 
England  ;  men  who  have  enlightened  the  world 
with  their  works ;  enlightened  England ;  Eng- 


(6)  Adverting  to  the  commencement  of  his  revolutionary 
labours  in  America,  he  rem  irks:  "  I  saw  an  opportunity  in 
-which  I  thought  I  could  do  some  good,  and  I  followed  exactly 
what  my  heart  dictated.  I  neither  read  books  nor  studied 
other  peoples'  opinions."  Rights  of  Man,  part  2, 

G 


50  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

land,  whence  we  have  drawn  all  that  is  excellent 
in  our  constitution  and  wwthy  in  our  practice. 
f  His  observations  on  the  origin  of  government, 
but  lightly  touching  the  subject,  are  trite  ;  those 

ton  monarchy  and  hereditary  succession,  of  no 
greater  solidity,  are  not  new  :  it  was  on  the  lat 
ter,  however,  that  he  valued  himself.  Here,  if 
he  had  not  discovered  a  new  principle,  he  fancied 
he  had  applied  a  new  argument.  Let  us  examine 
his  pretensions. 

"  To   the  evils  of  monarchy  we  have  added 
that  of  hereditary  succession ;  and  as  the  first  is 
a  degradation  and  lessening  of  ourselves,  so  the 
second,  claimed  as  a  matter  of  right,  is  an  insult 
and  imposition  on  posterity.     For  all  men  being 
originally  equal,    no  one  by  birth  could  Jiave  a 
right  to  set  up  his  own  family  in  perpetual  prefer 
ence   to  all  others  forever,  and  though  himself 
might  deserve   some  decent   degree  of  honours 
of  his  contemporaries,  yet  his  descendants  might 
be  too  unworthy  to  inherit  tliem.     One  of  the 
/      strongest  natural  proofs  of  the  folly  of  hereditary 
I      right   in    kings   is,    that  nature   disapproves   it, 
otherwise  she  would  not  so  frequently  turn  it  into 
J      ridicule  by  giving  mankind  an  ass  for  a  lion."(c) 


(c)  Common  Sense,  p.  13,  Phil.  1797. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

This  is  the  only  argument  contained  in  Common  j 
Sense  against  hereditary  succession.  The  con 
clusion,  that  which  he  terms  the  "  strongest  na 
tural  proof,"  although,  the  period  of  its  publica 
tion  considered,  perhaps  very  popular,  is  an  im 
pertinent  and  vulgar  sarcasm  altogether  unwor 
thy  of  the  subject.  •  The  first  part,  that  which 
alone  is  entitled  to  the  appellation  of  an  argu 
ment,  I  should  have  judged  he  had  clandestinely 
taken  from  Locke,  had  he  not  told  us  that  he 
"  read  no  books,  studied  no  man's  opinions." 

"  Men  being,  as  has  been  said,  by  nature,  all 
free,  equal,  and  independent,  no  one  can  be  put 
out  of  his  estate,  and  subjected  to  the  political 
power  of  another  without  his  consent."(cQ 

"  It  is  true,  that  whatever  engagement  or  pro 
mises  any  one  has  made  for  himself,  he  is  under 
the  obligation  of  them,  but  cannot,  by  any  com 
pact  whatever,  bind  his  children  or  posterity ;  for 
his  son,  when  a  man,  being  altogether  as  free  as 
his  father,  an  act  of  his  father  can  no  more  give 
away  the  liberty  of  his  son  than  it  can  of  any 
body  else.(f) 

His  strictures  on  the  ability  of  the  colonies  to 
become  independent,  contain  nothing  remarkable. 
A  very  ordinary  writer  might  have  written  them. 


(d]  Locke  of  Government,  works,  vol.  5,  p.  594,  Loncl.  1^01. ' 
(<?)  Locke   of   Government,  works,  vol.  o,  p.   407-8,  Lond. 
1801. 


52  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

^  Accident  directed  the  thoughts  of  the  Americans 
to  a  republick.  When  Common  Sense  was  writ 
ten,  the  friends  of  independence  were  not  repub 
licans.  Paine's  invectives  against  monarchy 
were  intended  against  the  monarchy  of  England, 
rather  than  against  monarchy  in  general,  and  they 
were  popular  in  the  degree  to  which  the  measures 
and  designs  of  the  British  cabinet  were  odious.(/) 


For  a  long  course  of  years,  my  amiable  young  friends, 
before  the  birth  of  the  oldest  of  you,  I  was  called  to  act  with 
'  your  fathers  in  concerting  measures  the  most  disagreeable  and 
dangerous,  not  from  a  desire  of  innovation,  not  from  discontent 
with  the  government,  under  which  nue  were  born  and  bred, 
but  to  preserve  the  honour  of  our  country,  and  vindicate  the 
immemorial  liberties  of  our  ancestors.  In  pursuit  of  these 
measures,  it  became,  not  an  object  of  predilection  and  choice, 
but  of  indispensable  necessity,  to  assert  our  independence." — 
President  Adams's  reply  to  the  address  of  the  young  men  of 
Philadelphia,  1798.  Boston  Ed. 

Here  he  plainly  says  that  he  was  indeed  in  favour  of  inde 
pendence,  but  not  of  a  form  of  government  different  from  that 
of  England.  He  was  attached  "  to  the  immemorial  liberty 
of  his  ancestors!"  What  liberty?  That  which,  according  to 
the  constitution  of  England,  is  allowed  by  the  king,  the  house 
of  lords,  and  the  house  of  commons. 

"  I  have  had  doubts  of  John  Adams  ever  since  the  year 
1776.  In  conversation  with  me  at  that  time,  concerning  a 
pamphlet  of  mine,  [Common  Sense]  he  censured  it  because 
it  attacked  monarchial  governments."  Paine's  second  letter 
to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  dated  Washington  City, 
1802. 

As  Paine  rarely  hesitated  at  the  propagation  of  a  falsehood, 
ministering  either  to  his  vanity  or  to  his  malice,  I  would  not 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  53 

The  question,  when  no  alternative  but  colonial 
vassalage  or  national  independence  presented  it 
self,  was  one  merely  of  independence,  for  as  Mr. 
Adams  truly  remarked,  the  colonists  had  no  wish 
but  for  the  ^  immemorial  liberties  of  their  ances 
tors."  To  this  may  be  added  the  observation  of 
Dr.  Franklin,  that  they  could  not  even  hope  for  a 
government  under  which  they  could  enjoy  liber 
ties  more  precious. 

On  the  fourth  of  July,  1 776,  congress  declared 
the  colonies    "  free  and  independent  states,"^) 


have  quoted  him  in  favour  of  my  position,, that  the  friends  of 
independence  were  not  originally  advocates  of  a  republick,  if 
he  were  not  in  this  instance  strengthened  and  confirmed  by  a 
thousand  facts  and  circumstances.  Paine's  remark  is  as  ap 
plicable  to  the  whole  of  the  congress  of  1774-5-6,  and  so  on, 
and  to  the  colonists  at  large,  as  to  Mr.  Adams. 

(,§•)  The  writer  of  the  declaration  of  Independence  has 
been  applauded  much  beyond  the  merits  of  the  composition. — 
The  declaration  consists  of  two  parts  ;  a  solemn  recognition 
and  enunciation  of  a  principle,  and  an  enumeration  of  the 
grievances  of  the  colonists.  To  the  enumeration,  no  extraor 
dinary  ability  was  necessary,  and  as  to  the  principle,  it  is  ev 
idently  taken  from  Locke,  without  the  candour  of  an  acknow 
ledgment. 

"  Prudence,  indeed,  will  dictate,  that  government  should 
not  be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes,  and  accordingly 
all  experience  has  shown,  that  mankind  are  more  disposed  to 
suffer,  while  evils  are  sufferable,  than  to  right  themselves  by 
abolishing  the  forms  to  which  they  are  accustomed.1"  Decla 
ration  of  Independence. 

"  It  is  true  such  men  may  stir  whenever  they  please,  but  it 
will  be  only  to  Uieu-  own  just  ruin  etna  perdition,  for  until  iae 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 


\vhich  was  as  soon  after  the  publication  of  Com 
mon  Sense,  Paine  remarks  "  as  the  work  could 
spread  through  such  an  extensive  country."^) 


mischief  be  grown  general,  and  the  evil  designs  of  the  rulers 
become  visible,  the  people,  who  are  more  disposed  to  suffer 
than  to  right  themselves  by  resistance,  are  not  apt  to  stir." — 
Locke  of  Government,  vol.  5,  p.  474-5,  Lond.  1801. 

*'  But  when  a  long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpations,  pursuing 
invariably  the  same  course,  evinces  a  design  to  reduce  them 
under  absolute  despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty  to 
throw  off  such  government,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for 
their  future  safety."  Declaration  of  Independence. 

"  But  if  a  long  train  of  abuses,  prevarications,  and  artifices, 
all  tending  the  same  way,  make  the  design  visible  to  the 
people,  and  they  cannot  but  feel  what  they  lie  under  and  see 
whither  they  are  going,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  they 
should  then  rouse  themselves,  and  endeavour  to  put  the  rule 
into  such  hands  -which  may  secure  to  them  the  ends  for  which 
government  was  first  erected."  Locke  of  Government,  vol.  5, 
p.  472,  Lond.  1801. 

There  is  great  similarity  in  the  following  sentences,  except 
ing  only  the  superiour  energy  and  eloquence  of  Milton's  style. 

Speaking  of  "  reason  and  free  inquiry,"  Mr.  Jefferson  says : 
*'  Give  a  loose  to  them,  they  will  support  the  true  religion, 
by  bringing  every  false  one  to  their  tribunal,  to  the  test  of 
their  investigation  :  they  are  the  natural  enemies  of  errour, 
and  of  errour  only."  Notes  on  Virginia,  p.  236,  New-York, 
1801. 

"  And  though  all  the  winds  of  doctrine  were  let  loose 
to  play  upon  the  earth,  so  truth  be  in  the  field,  we  do  injuri 
ously  to  misdoubt  her  strength.  Let  her  and  falsehood  grap 
ple,  who  ever  knew  truth  put  to  the  worse  in  a  free  and  opea 
encounter  ?"  Milton's  speech  for  the  liberty  of  unlicensed 
printing,  works,  vol.  1.  p.  326.  Lond.  1866. 

(//)  See  his  Will  in  the  appendix. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 


55 


Paine  now  accompanied  the  army  of  indepen 
dence  as  a  sort  of  itinerant  writer,  of  which  his 
pen  was  an  appendage  almost  as  necessary  and 
formidable  as  its  cannon.    Having  no  property,  he 
fared  as  the  army  fared,  and  at  the  same  expence, 
but  to  what   mess  he   was   attached  I  have  not 
been  able  to  learn,  although,  from  what  I  hear 
and  know,    it  must,   I   think,   though  he   was 
sometimes   admitted  into  higher  company,  have 
been  a  subaltern  one.     When  the  colonists  droop 
ed,  he  revived  them  with  a  CRISIS.     The  first  of 
these  numbers  he   published  early  in  December, 
1776.  (The   object  of  it  was  good,  the   method 
excellent,  and  the  language,  suited  to  the  depress 
ed  spirits  of  the  army,  of  publick  bodies,  and  of 
private  citizens,  cheering!    WASHINGTON,  defeated 
on  Long-Island,  had  retreated  to  New- York,  and 
been  driven  with  great  loss  from  Forts  Washing 
ton  and  Lee.  The  gallant  little  army,  overwhelm 
ed  with  a  rapid  succession  of  misfortunes,  was 
dwindling  away,    and  all    seemed  to   be   over 
with  the  cause  when  scarcely  a  blow  had  been 
struck.      "  These,  said  the  CRISIS,  are  the  times 
that  try  rnens'  souls.    The  summer  soldier  and  the 
sunshine  patriot  will,  in  this  crisis,  shrink  from  the 
service  of  his  country,  but  he  that  stands  it  NOW, 
deserves  the  love  and  thanks  of  man  and  woman. 
Tyranny,like  hell,  is  not  easily  conquered,  yet  we 
kave  this  consolation  with  us,  that  the  harder  the 


56  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

'    conflict  the  more  glorious  the  triumph  ;  what  \ve 
obtain  too  cheap  we  esteem  too  lightly/' 

The  number  was  read  in  the  camp,  to  every 
corporal's  guard,  and  in  the  army  and  out  of  it 
had  more  than  the  intended  effect.  The  conven 
tion  of  New- York,  reduced  by  despersion,  occa 
sioned  by  alarm,  to  nine  members,  was  rallied  and 
reanimated.(/)  Militia-men,  who,  already  tired 
of  the  war,  were  straggling  from  the  army,  re 
turned.  Hope  succeeded  to  despair,  cheerfulness 
to  gloom,  and  firmness  to  irresolution.  To  the 
confidence  which  it  inspired  may  be  attributed 
much  of  the  brilliant  little  affair  which  in  the  same 
month  followed  at  Trenton. 

On  this  event,  elevating  American  confidence 
and  breathing  caution  into  the  British  army, 
Paine,  in  January,  1776,  congratulated  the  "Free 
and  independent  States"  in  a  second  number  of 
the  CRISIS.  It  is  addressed  to  lord  Howe,  and  rid 
icules  his  proclamation  "  commanding  all  congres 
ses,  committees,  &c.  to  desist  and  cease  from  their 
treasonable  doings."  Against  the  king  and  his 
purposes,  it  is  full  of  invective,  but  of  a  sort  rath 
er  popular  than  exquisite.  Fortunately  for  the 
United  States  the  British  commander  in  chief 
dealt  more  in  impotent  proclamations  than  in  the 


(z)  Mr.  Gelston,   now  Collector  of  the  port  of  New- York, 
was  one  of  the  nine  members  who  remained  at  their  post. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  57 

efficacy  of  arms.  Washington's  retreat  to  Tren 
ton  was  a  compulsive  one.  He  had  not  from 
choice  and  by  military  skill  drawn  the  Hessians 
into  the  toil  in  which  they  were  ensnared.  I  do 
not  believe  that  even  a  number  of  the  CRISIS 
could  have  saved  the  American  army  and  cause 
from  annihilation,  if  Howe  had  been  an  active 
and  persevering,  an  enlightened  and  energetick 
commander.  Washington's  patience  and  care, 
his  admirable  coolness  and  prudence,  although 
often,  in  the  course  of  the  war,  provoked  to 
battle  by  a  thousand  irritating  circumstances,  by 
internal  faction,  and  by  British  sneers,  saved 
America  to  freedom,  while  the  idle  dissipation  of 
Howe,  his  devotion  to  licentious  pleasures,  his 
unmartial  spirit  and  conduct,  lost  it  to  the  crown. 
On  the  19th  of  April,  1776,  he  published,  at 
Philadelphia,  the  third  number  of  the  CRISIS.  As 
there  had  been  no  military  operations  from  the 
capture  of  the  Hessians  at  Trenton,  it  was  de 
voted  to  an  examination  of  occurrences  since 
the  declaration  of  independence,  and,  as  he  seems 
to  have  been  in  lack  of  matter,  to  a  repetition  of 
the  arguments  which  he  had  employed  in  Com 
mon  Sense  in  favour  of  independence.  To  these 
are  incidentally  added,  as  if  to  lengthen  out  the 
number,  light  immaterial  observations  on  paper 
emissions.  Except  some  sensible  remarks  on  the 
utility  of  reflecting  on  past  transactions,  the  only 
H 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

thing  in  this  number  worthy  of  observation,  and 
that  but  for  reprehension,  is  the  following  vul 
garity. 

"  There  is  not  such  a  being  in  America  as  a 
tory  from  conscience ;  some  secret  defect  or  other 
is  interwoven  in  the  character  of  all  those,  be 
they  men  or  women,  who  can  look  with  pa 
tience  on  the  brutality,  luxury,  and  debauchery 
of  the  British  court,  and  the  violations  of  their 
army  here.  A  woman's  virtue  must  sit  very 
lightly  on  her  who  can  even  hint  a  favourable 
sentiment  in  their  behalf.  It  is  remarkable  that 
the  whole  race  of  prostitutes  in  New- York  were 
tories ;  and  the  schemes  for  supporting  the  tory 
cause  in  this  city,  for  which  several  are  now  in 
gaol,  and  one  hanged,  were  concerted  and  carried 
on  in  bawdy  houses,  assisted  by  those  who  kept 
them." 

On  the  17th  of  April,  1777,  he  was  elected  by 
Congress  secretary  to  the  Committee  of  Foreign 
AfTairs.(y)  He  now  left  the  army  to  attend  the 
Committee. 


(/)  "Resolved,  that  the  stile  of  the  committee  o-f  secret  cor 
respondence  be  altered,,  and  that  for  the  future  it  be  stiled  the 
Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs. 

"  That  a  secretary  be  appointed  to  the  said  committee  with 
a.  salary  of  seventy-five  dollars  a  month. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

Bitterly  as  lie  pretended  to  be  opposed  to 
TITLES,  when  grasping  the  pillars  of  the  British 
government  he  endeavoured  to  subvert  it,  he 
was  yet  so  fond  of  them,  in  reality,  that  he  not 
only  assumed  to  himself  a  title  to  which  he  had 
no  claim,  but  he  seems  to  have  gloried  in  the 
fraudulent  assumption.  In  the  title-page  of  his 
Rights  of  Man,  he  styles  himself  "  Secretary  for 
Foreign  Affairs  to  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  in  the  late  war."  The  foreign  affairs  of 
the  United  States  were  conducted,  as  wre  see,  by 
a  Committee,  or  Board,  of  which  he  was  secre 
tary,  or  cl^t ;  clerk  more  properly,  at  a  very 
low  salary.  His  business  was  merely  to  copy 
papers,  number  and  file  them,  and,  generally, 
to  do  the  duty  of  what  is  now  called  a  clerk  in 
the  Foreign  Department.  He  was,  however, 


"  That  the  said  secretary,  previous  to  his  entering  on  his 
office,  take  an  oath  to  be  administered  by  the  president,  well 
and  faithfully  to  execute  the  trust  reposed  in  him  according  to 
his  best  skill  and  judgment,  and  to  disclose  no  matter  the 
knowledge  of  which  shall  be  acquired  in  consequence  of  such 
his  office,  that  he  shall  be  directed  to  keep  secret ;"  also  the 
oath  prescribed  for  the  officers  of  the  army,  and  passed  the 
21st  day  of  October,  1776,  and  that  a  certificate  thereof  be 
given  to  the  president,  and  lodged  with  the  secretary  of  con 
gress. 

"  Congress  proceeded  to  the  election  of  the  said  secretary, 
and  the  ballots  being  taken,  Thomas  Paine  was  elected".*-- 
Journals  of  Congress. 


60  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

determined  to  give  himself  a  higher  title.  Un 
substantial  in  essence  as  superadditions  to  names 
are,  he  nevertheless  liked  them,  and  seemed  to 
be  aware  that,  universally,  they  possess  a  charm(&) 
to  which  he  was  by  no  means  insensible.  From 
this  and  many  other  circumstances  we  may  in 
fer,  that  his  objections  to  being  himself  a  lord  of 
the  bed  chamber,  or  a  groom  of  the  stole,  a  mas 
ter  of  the  hounds,  or  a  gentleman  in  waiting, 
would  not  have  been  stronger  than  were  his 
wishes  to  be  retained  in  the  excise,  gutjiejwas 
totally  unfit  to  be  secretary^£^ta^_tie_JJtle 
which  ~He~Tiatrimpudently  assumed.  ^|He  had  nei 


ther  the  sobernessol  hait,  the  reservednes  of  de 
portment,  the  urbanity  of  manners,  the  courteous- 
ness  of  language,  the  extent  of  reading,  nor  the 
wide  range  of  thought,  which  a  station  so  distin 
guished  requires,!  He  was  formed,  as  has  often 
been  observed,  to  pull  down,  not  to  set  up.  His 
fort  was  anarchy.  Order  was  the  perpetual  and 


(£)  There  is  perhaps  no  nation  so  fond  of  titles  as  our  own, 
Every  man  in  office,  or  who  has  been  in  office,  is  addressed 
by  the  appellation  of  it :  Mr.  President,  Mr.  Constable,  Co 
lonel  such-a-one,  and  Judge  such-a-one ;  though  the  Colonel, 
out  of  commission,  is  working  at  his  bench,  and  the  country 
Judge,  out  of  court,  is  serving  his  customers  in  a  tavern. — 
This  is  universal,  and  we  feel  neglected  if  our  title  be  for 
gotten.  Yet  we  smile  contemptuously  at  the  weakness  of 
nations  by  which  titles  arfe  acknowledged '! 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  61 

invincible  enemy  of  his  talents.  In  tranquillity, 
he  sunk  into  the  kennel  of  intemperance ;  in  a 
commotion  of  the  political  elements,  he  rode  con 
spicuously  on  the  surge.(/) 

On  the  12th  day  of  September,  1777,  he  pub 
lished,  at  Philadelphia,  the  fourth  number  of  the 
CRISIS.  Howe,  gaining  some  advantage  at  Bran- 
dywine,  had  nevertheless  deemed  it  prudent  to 
fall  back  on  the  Schuylkill.  Paine's  object 
was  to  convince  the  people  that  a  victory  so  tri 
fling,  followed  by  a  retiring  march,  was  in  fact  a 
defeat.  Exhorting  the  army  to  perseverance,  and 
conjuring  the  people  to  reinforce  it,  nothing  wras 
necessary,  he  ingeniously  urged,  to  drive  Howe 
from  the  Schuylkill,  but  conduct  at  once  prompt, 
spirited,  and  energetick. 


(/)  Madame  Roland  describes  him  admirably.  "  Amonj 
the  persons  whom  I  was  in  the  habit  of  seeing,  Paine  deserves 
to  be  mentioned.  I  think  him  better  fitted  to  sow  the  seeds  of 
popular  commotion,  than  to  lay  the  foundations  or  prepare 
the  form  of  government.  He  throws  light  on  a  revolution, 
better  than  he  concurs  in  the  making  of  a  constitution.  He 
takes  Up  and  establishes  those  great  principles,  of  which  the 
exposition  strikes  every  eye,  gains  the  applause  of  a  club,  or 
excites  the  enthusiasm  of  a  tavern,  but  for  a  cool  discussion 
in  a.  committee  or  the  regular  labours  of  a  legislator,  I  con 
ceive  David  Williams,  [an  Englishman]  infinitely  more  pro 
per  than  Paine"  Roland's  Appeal,  vol.  1,  part  2,  p.  45,  New- 
York,  1798. 


62  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

Number  five  of  the  CRISIS,  addressed  "  to  Gen 
eral  Sir  William  Howe,"  was  published  at  Lan 
caster,  Pennsylvania,  March  21,  1778.  It  ridi 
cules  at  great  length  Sir  William's  TITLE.  In 
this  sort  of  writing,  always  successful  when  ap 
pealing  to  popular,  feeling,  he  was  not  always 
refined.  He  describes  Sir  William  as  a  "  savage, 
holding  humanity  in  contempt."  Deriving  his 
commission  from  the  "  royal  brute,"  he  thinks  it 
di  honourable. 

For  language  so  rude,  some  apology  may  per 
haps  be  found  in  the  nature  and  operations  of 
the  war.  His  business  was  to  excite  and  keep 
up  a  revolutionary  spirit.  He  charges  Sir  Wil 
liam  with  having  forged  continental  paper — 
represents  him  as  a  felon — speaks  of  the  ease 
with  which  the  offence  might  be  dreadfully  re 
torted  upon  England,  "  a  nation  of  paper  money," 
and  reminds  him,  that  the  laws  of  his  country 
punish  forgery  with  death !  He  associates  Sir 
William  with  the  Indians,  who  had  been  let  loose, 
it  was  said,  on  our  defenceless  inhabitants.  Of 
the  conquest  of  Burgoyne  he  writes  in  trium 
phant  terms.  On  the  military  conduct  of  WASH 
INGTON  he  is  glowingly  encomiastick,  but  of  his 
just  eulogiums  on  that  extraordinary  man,  it  will 
be  proper  to  pay  more  particular  attention  when 
we  approach  the  defamations  which  he  subse 
quently  wrote  in  Paris.  He  advises  Sir  William 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE,  63 

to  go  home,  and  pronounces  the  States  uncon-     / 
querable.     This  number  is  the  most  judicious  and 
able  of  the  series. 

Number  six  of  the  CRISIS,  without  date,(*w)  is 
addressed  to  the  "  Inhabitants  of  America." 
"  As  a  good  opinion  of  ourselves,"  he  observes, 
is  necessary  to  the  support  of  a  national  charac 
ter,"  he  very  good  naturedly  compares  the  Ame 
ricans  with  the  Greeks  and  Romans ;  thinks  them 
equal  in  courage,  and  very  superior  in  wisdom. 
This  must  have  been  an  agreeable  number. 

Number  seven  of  the  CRISIS,  published  in  Phi 
ladelphia,  October  20,  1778,  is  addressed  to  the 
4<  Earl  of  Carlisle,  General  Clinton,  and  William 
Eden,  Esq.  Commissioners  at  New-York."  These 
gentlemen,  when  the  States  were  proudly  confi 
dent  of  ultimate  success,  laughably  enough  re 
vived  the  paper-war  which  general  Howe  had 
farcically  commenced  and  vigourously  prose 
cuted.  In  a  proclamation,  announcing  the  "  be 
nevolent  intentions  of  the  king,"  they  alternately 
coaxed  and  threatened.  Coaxing  was  now  ridi 
culously  out  of  character,  and  menacing,  with 
the  surrender  of  Burgoyne  staring  them  in  the 
face,  was  sufficiently  impotent.  Paine  handled 


(in}  It  is  termed,  with   some  others,  an  extraordinary  or 
supernumerary    Crisis,  but  it   will  be  less   embarrassing  t« 
them  all. 


64:  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

both  topicks  with  an  acuteness  which  the  States 
must  have  admired,  and  a  force  which  the  Com 
missioners  undoubtedly  felt. 

The  CRISIS,  number  eight,  published  in  Phila 
delphia,  November  21,  1778,  is  addressed  "  To 
the  People  of  England."  This  is  an  appeal,  as 
a  Christian,  to  the  justice  and  magnanimity  of 
Englishmen  in  favour  of  the  States,  and  repre 
sents,  with  great  cogency  of  argument,  the  pos 
sible  success  of  the  ministry,  which  he  does  not 
however  admit,  as  detrimental  in  its  consequen 
ces  to  the  freedom  and  prosperity  of  England. 
BURKE  is,  however,  on  this,  as  on  all  other  sub 
jects  on  which  they  write,  infinitely  his  superiour. 
"  Considering  the  Americans  on  that  defensive 
footing,  he  thought  Great  Britain  ought  instantly 
to  have  closed  with  them  by  the  repeal  of  the 
taxing  act.  He  was  of  opinion  that  our  general 
rights  over  that  country  would  have  been  pre 
served  by  this  timely  concession.  When,  instead 
of  this  a  Boston  port  bill,  a  Massachusetts  charter 
bill,  a  fishery  bill,  an  intercourse  bill,  I  know  not 
how  many  hostile  bills  rushed  out  like  so  many 
tempests  from  all  parts  of  the  compass,  and  were 
accompanied  first  with  great  fleets  and  armies, 
and  followed  afterwards  with  great  bodies  of  fo 
reign  troops,  he  thought  that  their  cause  grew 
daily  better,  because  daily  more  defensive,  and 
that  ours,  because  daily  more  offensive,  grew 


s 
•  t- 

LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE,  65 

daily  worse."  "  So  circumstanced,  he  certainly 
never  could  and  never  did  wish  the  colonists  to 
be  subdued  by  arms.  He  was  fully  persuaded, 
that  if  such  should  be  the  event,  they  must  be 
held  in  that  subdued  state  by  a  great  body  of 
standing  forces,  and  perhaps  of  foreign  forces. 
He  was  strongly  of  opinion  that  such  armies, 
first  victorious  over  Englishmen,  in  a  conflict  for 
English  constitutional  rights  and  privileges,  and 
afterwards  habituated  (though  in  America)  to 
keep  an  English  people  in  a  state  of  abject  sub 
jection,  would  prove  fatal  in  the  end  to  the  lib 
erty  of  England  itself."^)  Of  the  philosophy  of 
politicks,  Paine  chuses  to  think  the  cabinet  of 
England  totally  ignorant.  He  considers  the  go 
vernment  as  one  of  precedent  and  venality  only, 
and,  whether  deservedly  or  not,  thus  pleasantly 
satirises  its  prime  minister.  "  As  to  Lord  North, 
it  is  his  happiness  to  have  in  him  more  of  philoso 
phy  than  sentiment,  for  he  bears  flogging  like  a 
top,  and  sleeps  the  better  for  it.  His  punishment 
becomes  his  support,  for  while  he  suffers  the  lash 
for  his  sins,  he  keeps  himself  up  by  twirling 
about." 

On  the  8th  of  January,  1 779,  he  compulsively 
resigned  his  clerkship  to  the  committee  of  foreign 


(n)  Burke's  Appeal  from  the  new  to  the  old  whigs,  works, 
vol.  6,  p.  123-4,  Loud.  1803. 

I 


66  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

affairs,  having  held  it  twenty-one  months.  As 
the  circumstances  occasioning  and  accompanying 
his  resignation,  have  not,  materially  as  they  af 
fect  his  character,  been  fully  explained,  a  state 
ment  of  them  somewhat  minute  may  find  in  its 
pertinence  an  apology  for  its  prolixity. 

Very  early  in  the  struggle  for  independence, 
before,  I  believe,  it  was  declared,  Silas  Deane, 
an  artful  speculator  on  the  revolution,  but  a  man 
neither  of  solid  nor  splendid  acquirements,  was 
employed  by  the  committee  of  secret  correspon 
dence,  afterwards  the  committee  of  foreign  af 
fairs,  to  purchase  in  France,  as  a  merchant,  or 
to  obtain  from  the  French  government  for  con 
gress,  certain  military  supplies.  He  was  soon 
after  named  by  the  secret  committee  of  corres- 
pondencej  with  Dr.  Franklin  and  Mr.  Lee,  in  a 
commission  to  the  court  of  France. 

At  this  period,  Louis  the  XVI.  intent  on  a 
comparative  aggrandizement  of  his  power  by 
abridging  the  power  of  his  rival,  and  with  char- 
acteristical  perfidy  secretly  fomenting  the  dispute 
between  England  and  the  colonists,  cordially  and 
promptly  granted  the  supplies,  which  Paine 
says, (a)  and  probably  in  this  instance  he  may  be 
credited,  were  furnished  from  the  king's  arse- 


(o)  £ee  his  letter  to  congress  in  the  Appendix. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE,  67 

nal.  But  as  the  issue  of  the  contest  on  the  side 
of  America  was  exceedingly  problematical,  and 
his  most  Christian  majesty  was,  precisely  for  that 
reason,  falsely  disavowing  to  England  all  connex 
ion  with  the  colonists,  and  protesting  to  her  and  for 
her  sentiments  of  the  purest  amity,  secrecy  was 
mutually  pledged  by  the  king  and  the  secret  com 
mittee  of  correspondence,  that  the  supplies,  which 
were  a  present  from  Louis,  an  exciting  gratuity, 
should  never  be  known  as  such.  The  transac 
tion  was  therefore  to  assume  the  air  of  an  ordi 
nary  mercantile  one,  and  a  Mr.  Beaumarchais,  a 
creature  of  Louis,  or  of  Silas  Deane,  perhaps  of 
both,  was  the  agent  in  whose  name  the  supplies 
were  to  be  despatched.  Three  ships,  the  Ainphi- 
trite,  Seine,  and  Mercury,  loaded  with  supplies, 
were  cleared  for  Cape  Francaise,  and  consigned 
to  Roderick  Hortalis  &  Co.  an  imaginary  house. 
After  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  after  the 
capture  of  the  Hessians,  after  the  surrender  of 
Burgoyne,  and  when,  therefore,  the  politick  court 
of  France  concluded,  that,  with  a  little  aid,  the 
colonies  might  be  severed  forever  from  the  Brit 
ish  crown,  the  alliance  between  France  and  the 
States,  the  effect  of  those  brilliant  events,  was 
formed  and  ratified.  Still,  notwithstanding  the 
alliance,  as  the  supplies  were  a  gratuity,  as  the 
king's  word,  which  was  the  king's  honour,  and 
the  word  of  the  secret  committee  of  correspon- 


68  LIFE   OF  THOMAS   PAINE. 

dence  had  been  given,  that  they  should  be  so 
considered,  the  alliance  neither  varied  the  trans 
action,  nor  absolved  the  parties  from  the  mutual 
obligations  of  confidence. 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  Silas  Deane,  who  for 
misconduct  had  been  recalled  from  the  French 
court,  appeared  before  a  committee  appointed 
by  congress  to  audit  his  accounts.  Deane,  clearly, 
I  think,  with  fraudulent  designs,  had  left  in 
France  the  principal  part  of  his  papers.  Consi 
dering,  however,  both  France  and  America  bound 
not  to  disclose  the  nature  of  the  supplies,  he  pre- 
s  nted  h.ms^lf,  in  settling  his  accounts,  as  a  kind 
of  co-agent,  with  a  Mr.  Francey,  for  Beaumar- 
chais,  in  whose  name  he  claimed  compensation 
for  them.  The  auditing  committee,  perhaps  made 
acquainted  by  the  secret  committee  of  correspon 
dence  with  the  nature  of  the  supplies,  questioned 
the  justice  of  the  claim.  Deane,  surely  a  bold 
faced  villain,  appealed  to  the  publick.  With 
Deane,  Paine  entered  the  field  of  newspaper  dis 
pute,  under  the  imposing  head  of  "  Common 
Sense  to  the  publick  on  Deane's  affairs."  In  this 
controversy,  pursuing  with  ardour  an  empty 
newspaper  triumph,  and  disregarding  his  official 
duty,  he  remarked : — "  If  Mr.  Deane  or  any 
other  gentleman  will  procure  an  order  from  con 
gress  to  inspect  an  account  in  my  office,  or  any 
of  Mr.  Deane's  friends  in  congress  will  take  the 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  69 

trouble  of  coming  themselves,  I  will  give  him  or 
them  my  attendance,  and  show  them  in  hand 
writing  which  Mr.  Deane  is  well  acquainted  with, 
that  the  SUPPLIES  he  so  pompously  plumes  himself 
upon,  were  presented  and  engaged,  and  that  AS 
A  PRESENT,  before  he  even  arrived  in  France." 

Here  Paine,  "  Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  to 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States,"  who  had 
taken  an  oath  to  "  disclose  no  matter,  the  know 
ledge  of  which  shall  be  acquired  in  consequence 
of  his  office,"  not  only  wantonly  and  without 
any  sort  of  necessity  (and  no  necessity  could 
mitigate  the  offence)  violated  his  oath  and  embar 
rassed  'congress,  but  proclaimed  to  the  world  the 
insidious  conduct  of  France,  and  the  falsities  of 
the  king's  declarations  to  England,  at  and  subse 
quent  to  the  time  when  the  "  PRESENT"  was  made. 
Deane's  accounts  were  not  to  be  settled  by  the 
"  publick,"  but  by  the  guardians  of  the  publick. 
The  publick,  in  the  gross  character  of  a  publick, 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  transaction  but  quietly 
to  receive  the  benefit  of  it.  His  appeal  to  them 
was  consequently  as  unnecessary  as  is  was  repre 
hensible.  But,  he  says,(/>)  "  I  prevented  Deane's 
fraudulent  demand  being  paid,  and  so  far  the 
country  is  obliged  to  me,  but  I  became  the  vie- 


(//)  See  his  letter  to  congress  in  tke  Appendix. 


70  LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

tim  of  my  integrity."  To  an  enormous  violation 
of  his  official  duty  and  oath,  which  he  decks 
with  the  epithet  of  integrity,  this  is  adding  a 
gross,  and,  if  he  were  not,  which  is  not  probable, 
totally  ignorant  of  a  notorious  fact,  a  wilful 
falsehood.  His  newspaper  victory(^)  had  not, 
could  not  have  had,  the  effect  which  he  ascribes 
to  it.  How  could  he  by  an  appeal  to  the  publick 
have  prevented  the  payment  of  the  demand  by 
the  auditing  committee  ?  If  the  committee  had 
been  disposed  to  yield  to  the  collusive  and  nefa 
rious  claim  of  the  sharpers,  Beaumarchais  and 
Deane,  and  his  publications  had  deterred  them 
from  their  purpose,  then  his  conclusion,  without 
varying  his  offence,  would  have  been  admissible. 
But  what  induced  Deane's  appeal,  to  which  Paine 
replied,  and  in  replying  divulged  the  secret  ?  The 
ill  treatment  of  the  committee,  as  Deane  termed  it 
— their  rigorous  scrutiny  into  his  accounts — their 
refusal  to  pay  the  claim(r) — their  referring  him 
to  congress,  who  alone  could  authorise  an  inspec- 


(?)  No  doubt  he  obtained  one,  for  besides  being  a  rogue, 
Deane  was  extremely  illiterate.  See  his  defence  published  in 
London  after  the  peace,  and  re-published  by  Hudson  and 
Goodwin,  Hartford,  Connecticut,  1784. 

(r)  See  Gordon's  History  of  the  Revolution,  vol.  2,  page 
405-6-7,  where,  although  the  transaction  is  inaccurately  and 
feebly  stated,  it  will  be  seen,  that  the  conduct  of  the  auditing 
committee,  firm  and  dignified  undoubtedly,  was  rather  haughty 
than  yielding. 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINI.  71 

tion  or  exposition  of  the  secret  papers.  A  re 
sult  exactly  the  reverse  of  that  mentioned  by 
Paine  was  the  fact  Instead  of  preventing  by 
his  publications  the  payment  of  Beaumarchais's 
claim,  his  publications  were  the  means,  fraudu 
lent  as  it  was,  of  compelling  congress  to  adopt 
it.  The  moment  his  publications  appeared  in 
Dunlap's  paper,  the  minister  of  France,  Gerard, 
alarmed  at  the  developement  of  the  secret,  at 
the  exposition  of  his  master,  presented  a  memorial 
to  congress.  What  was  the  consequence  ?  Why, 
that  congress,  in  order  to  quiet  the  fears  of  Ge 
rard,  and  to  cover  as  well  as  they  could  the 
word  of  honour  which  his  most  Christian  majesty 
had  given  to  England,  Resolved,  as  appears  in 
their  proceedings  below  in  reference  to  Paine, 
which  I  quote  at  length,^)  that  the  PRESENT  was 


(*)     "  Tuesday,  January  5,  1779. 

"  A  memorial  from  the  minister  of  France,  was  read,  res 
pecting  sundry  passages  ia  two  news-papers  annexed  of  the 
2d  and  5th  inst. 

"  Ordered,  That  the  consideration  thereof  be  postponed  till 
to-morrow. 

"  Wednesday,  January  6,  1779. 

"  A  letter,  of  this  day,  from  Thomas  Paine,  was  read  ; 
whereupon, 

'*  The  order  of  the  day  on  the  memorial  of  the  minister  of 
France  was  called  for,  and  the  said  memorial  being  read  : 

"  Ordered,  That  Mr.  John  Dunlap,  printer,  and  Mr.  Tho 
mas  Faine,  attend  immediately  at  the  bar  of  this  house. 


72  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

not  a  present ;  that  Beaumarchais's  claim  should 
be  paid,  and,  in  addition,  that  the  president  of 
congress  be  directed  to  write  him  a  complimentary 
letter,  thanking  him  for  his  exertions  and  assuring 


"  Mr.  John  Dunlap  attending,  was  called  in,  and  the  news 
papers  of  the  2d  and  5th  of  Jan.  inst.  intitled,  *  Pennsylvania 
Packet  or  General  Advertiser,'  being  shewn  to  him,  he  was 
asked  whether  he  was  the  publisher  ;  to  which  he  answered, 
yes: 

"  He  was  then  asked  who  is  the  author  of  the  pieces  in  the 
said  papers,  under  the  title  "  Common  Sense  to  the  public 
on  Mr.  Deane's  affairs  ;"  to  which  he  answered,  Mr.  Thomas 
Paine  :  he  was  then  ordei'ed  to  withdraw. 

"  Mr.  Thomas  Paine  attending,  was  called  in,  and  being 
asked  if  he  was  the  author  of  the  pieces  in  the  Pennsylvania 
Packet  or  General  Advertiser  of  Jan.  2d  and  5th,  1779,  un 
der  the  title  *  Common  Sense  to  the  public  on  Mr.  Deane's  af 
fairs  ;'  he  answered  that  he  was  the  author  of  those  pieces  : 
he  was  then  ordered  to  withdraw. 

"  Thursday ,  January  7,  1779. 

"  Congress  resumed  the  consideration  of  the  subject  which 
was  under  debate  yesterday.  And  the  following  set  of  reso 
lutions  were  moved ; 

**  That  all  the  late  publications  in  the  General  Advertiser, 
printed  by  John  Dunlap,  relative  to  American  foreign  affairs, 
are  ill-judged,  premature  and  indiscrete,  and  that  as  they 
must  in  general  be  founded  on  very  partial  documents,  and 
consequently  depend  much  on  conjecture,  they  ought  not  by 
any  means  to  be  considered  as  justly  authenticated  : 

"  That  congress  never  has  given  occasion  for  or  sanction  to 
any  of  the  said  publications  : 

"  That  congress  never  has  received  any  species  of  military 
stores  as  a  present  from  the  court  of  France,  or  from  any 
other  court  or  persons  in  Europe  : 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  73 

him  of  their  regard."  Upon  these  proceedings, 
forced  upon  congress  by  Paine's  publications, 
Beaumarchais,  supported  by  his  imperial  majesty 
and  king,  Napoleon,  founded  a  substantial  claim, 


"  That  Mr.  Thomas  Paine  for  his  imprudence  ought  imme 
diately  to  be  dismissed  from  his  office  of  secretary  to  the 
committee  of  foreign  affairs,  and  the  said  committee  are  di 
rected  to  dismiss  him  accordingly,  and  to  take  such  further 
steps  relative  to  his  misapplication  of  public  papers  as  they 
shall  deem  necessary. 

"  In  amendment,  and  as  a  substitute  to  the  foregoing,  the 
following  set  of  resolutions  was  moved  : 

"  Whereas  Thomas  Paine,  secretary  to  the  committee  of 
foreign  affairs,  has  acknowledged  himself  to  be  the  author  of 
a  piece  in  the  Pennsylvania  Packet  of  Jan.  2d,  1779,  under  the 
title  of  Common  Sense  to  the  public  on  Mr.  Deane's  affairs^ 
in  which  is  the  following  paragraph,  viz.  "  If  Mr.  Deane  or 
any  other  gentleman  will  procure  an  order  from  congress  to 
inspect  an  account  in  my  office,  or  any  of  Mr.  Deane's  friends 
in  congress  will  take  the  trouble  of  coming  themselves,  I  will 
give  him  or  them  my  attendance,  and  shew  them  in  hand 
writing,  which  Mr.  Deane  is  well  acquainted  with,  that  the 
supplies  he  so  pompously  plumes  himself  upon  were  promised 
and  engaged,  and  that,  as  a  present,  before  he  even  arrived 
in  France  ;  and  the  part  that  fell  to  Mr.  Deane  was  only  to 
see  it  done,  and  how  he  has  performed  that  service  the  public 
are  now  acquainted  with."  The  last  paragraph  in  the  ac 
count  is,  "  upon  Mr.  Deane's  arrival  in  France  the  business 
went  into  his  hands,  and  the  aids  were  at  length  embarked  in 
the  Amphitrite,  Mercury,  and  Seine."  And,  whereas,  the 
said  Thomas  Paine  hath  also  acknowledged  himself  to  be  the 
author  of  a  piece  in  the  succeeding  Packet  of  January  5th, 
1779,  under  the  same  title,  in  which  is  the  following  para 
graph,  to  wit,  "  and  in  the  second  instance,  that  those  who 

K 


74  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

and  prosecuted  it  with  such  vigour  and  success, 
that,  in  the  year  1808,  he  obtained  from  the  at 
torney  general  of  the  United  States,  through 
congress,  a  report  in  favour  of  satisfying  his 


are  now  her  allies,  prefaced  that  alliance  by  an  early  and 
generous  friendship,  yet  that  we  might  not  attribute  too  much 
to  human  or  auxiliary  aid,  so  unfortunate  were  these  supplies, 
that  only  one  ship  out  of  the  three  arrived ;  the  Mercury  and 
Seine  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy  ;" 

"  Resolved^  That  the  insinuation  contained  in  the  said  pub 
lications,  that  the  supplies  sent  to  America  in  the  Amphitrite, 
Seine,  and  Mercury  were  a  present  from  France,  is  untrue  : 

"  That  the  publications  above  recited  tend  to  impose  upon, 
mislead,  and  deceive  the  public  : 

"  That  the  attempt  of  the  said  Thomas  Paine  to  authenti 
cate  the  said  false  insinuations,  by  referring  to  papers  in  the 
office  of  the  committtee  of  foreign  affairs,  is  an  abuse  of 
office  ; 

"  That  the  said  Thomas  Paine  be,  and  he  hereby  is,  dis 
missed  from  his  said  office. 

"  A  third  set  of  resolutions  was  moved  as  an  amendment 
and  substitute  to  the  two  foregoing  sets,  viz. 

"  That  congress  are  deeply  concerned  at  the  imprudent 
publication  of  Mr.  Thomas  Paine,  secretary  to  the  committee 
of  foreign  affaris,  referred  to  by  the  minister  of  France  in  his  me 
morial  of  the  Sthinst.  and  are  ready  to  adopt  any  measure  con 
sistent  with  good  policy  and  their  own  honour,  for  correcting 
any  assertions  or  insinuations  in  the  said  publications,  deroga 
tory  to  the  honour  of  the  court  of  France  : 

"  That  a  committee  be  appointed  to  consider  the  said  me 
morial  and  paragraphs  referred  to,  that  they  confer  with  the 
minister  of  France  on  the  subject,  and  report  as  soon  as 
may  be. 


IJFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  75 

claim.  According  to  the  report  of  the  attorney- 
general,  more  than  a  million  of  dollars  are  to  be 
paid  to  Beaumarchais  in  compensation  for  the 
supplies ! 


"  In  lieu  of  the  whole  the  following  resolution  was  moved  as 
a  substitute,  viz. 

"  Whereas  exceptionable  passages  have  appeared  in  Mr. 
Dunlap's  Pennsylvania  Packet,  of  the  2d  and  5th  inst.  under 
the  character  of  Common  Sense  ;  and  Thomas  Paine,  secre 
tary  to  the  committee  of  foreign  affafrs,  being  called  before 
congress,  avowed  his  being  the  author  of  those  publications  : 

"  Resolved,  That  Thomas  Paine  be  summoned  to  appear 
before  congress  at  eleven  o'clock  to-morrow,  and  be  informed 
what  those  exceptionable  passages  are,  and  called  upon  to  ex 
plain  and  to  shew  by  what  authority  he  made  those  publica 
tions,  in  order  that  congress  may  take  proper  measures 
relative  thereto. 

"  The  previous  question  was  moved  on  the  last  amendment; 
whereupon,  the  sense  of  the  house  was  taken,  whether  the 
previous  question  is  in  order  on  an  amendment : 

"  Resolved,  That  it  is  not  in  order. 

"  On  the  question  to  substitute  the  last  resolution  as  an 
amendment  to  the  whole,  the  yeas  and  nays  being  required  by 
Mr.  G.  Morris, 

New-Hampshire,          Mr.   Whifijile,  ay  \  ay 

Massachusetts-Bay,     Mr.  Gerry, 

Mr.  Lo-vell, 

Mr.  Holten, 
Rhode-Island,  Mr.  JRlleru, 

Mr.  Collins,  ' 
Connecticut,  Mr.  Di/er, 

Mr.  Root, 
New-York,  Mr.  Jay, 

Mr.  Duane, 

Mr.  G.  Morris, 

Mr.  Lewis, 


76 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 


Of  neither  of  these  facts  could  Paine  have  been 
ignorant.  The  one  happened  in  the  middle  of 
his  Deane-controversy,  a  few  days  after  his 
dismission.  The  other,  the  ultimate  decision  of 
the  attorney-general,  long  before  his  death. 


JVetv- Jersey,  Mr.  Withersfioon,  no 

Mr.  Scudder,  no  ^>no 

Mr.  Fell,  no 

Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Eoberdeau,  ay 

Mr.  AUee,  no 

Mr.  Stjarle,  ay 

Delaware,  Mr.  M<Kean,  ay  \  ay 

Maryland,  Mr.  Paca,  no 

Mr.  Carmichael,  no 

Mr.  Henry,  ay 

Virginia,  Mr.  T.Adams,         no 

Mr.  ^.  i.  Zee,         ay 
Mr.  Af.  Smith,          no 

North- Carolina,  Mr.  Penn,  no 

Mr.  /#//,  TZO 

Mr.  Burke,  no 

South-Carolina,  Mr.  Laurcns,  ay 

Mr.  Drayton,  no  >TZO 

Mr.  Hutson,  no 

Georgia,  Mr.  Langivorthy,    no  \  no 

So  it  passed  in  the  negative. 

"  Friday,  January  8,  1779. 

*'  A  letter,  of  this  day,  from  Thomas  Paine,  was  read,  by 
which  he  resigns  his  office  of  secretary  to  the  committee  of 
foreign  affairs,  and  in  which  are  the  following  words,  "  finding 
by  the  journals  of  this  house  of  yesterday  that  I  am  not  to  be 
heard,"  See.  whereupon, 

"  A  member  desired  to  be  informed  how  Mr.  Paine  had  ac 
quired  that  knowledge,  and  the  secretary  was  deaired  to 
inform  the  house  whether  Mr.  Paine  had  access  to  the  jour 
nal  ;  the  secretary  answered,  "  that  Mr.  Paine  had  not  seen 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  77 

In  the  opinion  of  congress,  Paine,  in  whom 
it  was  ascertained  that  official  trust  could  not  be 
reposed,  now  sunk  into  vileness.  Dismissed 
from  his  clerkship  to  the  committee  for  a  scanda- 


the  journal  of  yesterday,  nor  had  any  other  person  had  access 
to  it  since  the  last  adjournment,  as  he  had  taken  it  home  last 
night,  and  brought  it  with  him  to  congress  this  morning,  so 
that  even  the  clerks  in  the  office  had  not  seen  the  minutes  of 
yesterday,  and  that  since  the  last  adjournment  he  had  not 
seen  Mr.  Paine,  nor  communicated  the  proceedings  of  con 
gress  to  any  person  whatever." 

"  A  motion  was  then  made,  that  Mr:  Thomas  Paime,  secre 
tary  to  the  committee  of  foreign  affairs,  be  directed  immedi 
ately  to  attend  at  the  bar  of  this  house,  to  answer  to  certain 
questions  respecting  the  contents  of  his  letter  to  the  president 
of  congress  of  this  day. 

"  After  debate,  a  substitute  was  moved  as  follows : 

*'  That  the  members  of  congress  be  separately  examined  by 
the  president,  on  their  honour,  whether  they  have  communir 
cated  the  resolutions  of  yesterday  to  Mr.  Thomas  Paine,  and 
if  so,  in  what  manner  they  have  made  such  representation. 

"  After  debate,  when  the  question  was  about  to  be  put,  Mr. 
Laurens  arose  and  declared  that  he  had  informed  Mr.  Paine, 
that  a  motion  had  been  made  for  hearing  him  to-morrow  at 
eleven  o'clock,  which  had  been  seconded,  that  the  yeas  and 
nays  had  been  taken  thereon  and  passed  in  the  negative  ;  and 
that  he  referred  him  to  Mr.  Thompson  for  a  sight  ot  the 
journals,  which  would  inform  him  more  certainly,  and  he  was 
persuaded  Mr.  Thompson  would  readily  show  the  journal. 
"  Saturday,  January  9,  1779. 

"  Congress  resumed  the  consideration  of  the  letter  of  the 
8th,  from  Thomas  Paine  ;  whereupon, 

Resolved,  That  the  determination  of  the  question  of  the  7th 
jnst.  for  substituting  the  last  amendment  in  lieu  of  all  the  sets 


78  LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

lous  breach  of  office,  his  prospects,  except  the 
popular  hold  which  he  still  had  on  the  people,  to 
whom  his  misconduct  was  not  perhaps  known, 
were  almost  as  discouraging  as  when,  a  second 


of  resolutions  moved  prior  to  it,  on  which  the  yeas  and  nays 
were  called  for  by  Mr.  G.  Morris,  did  not  imply,  nor  can  it  be 
justly  construed  to  imply,  that  congress  had  determined  that 
Mr.  Thomas  Paine  was  not  to  be  heard. 

"  Monday,  January  11,  1779. 

"  A  memorial  dated  the  10th  inst.  from  the  hon.  sieur  Ge 
rard,  minister  plenipotentiary  of  France,  was  read  : 

"  Ordered,  That  the  Subject  under  debate  on  Thursday 
last,  be  immediately  taken  into  consideration. 

"  On  the  question  to  substitute  the  third  set  of  resolutions  in 
lieu  of  the  two  foregoing  : 

"  Passed  in  the  negative. 

"  On  the  question  to  substitute  the  second  set  of  resolutions 
in  the  room  of  the  first : 

"  Resolved  in  the  affirmative. 

"  The  first  resolution  in  the  second  set  was  then  read  : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  consideration  of  the  subject  be  post 
poned  till  to-morrow. 

"  Tuesday,  January  12, 1779. 

"  Congress  resumed  the  consideration  of  the  publications  in 
the  Pennsylvania  Packet  of  the  2d  and  5th  inst.  under  the 
title  of  Common  Sense  to  the  public  on  Mr.  Deane's  affairs,  of 
•which  Mr.  Thomas  Paine,  secretary  of  the  committee  of  fo 
reign  affairs,  has  acknowledged  himself  to  be  the  author  ; 
and  also  the  memorials  of  the  minister  plenipotentiary  of 
France  of  the  5th  and  10th  inst.  respecting  the  said  publica 
tions  ;  whereupon, 

"  Resolved,  unanimously,  That  in  answer  to  the  memorials 
of  the  hon.  sieur  Gerard,  minister  plenipotentiary  of  his  most 
Christian  majesty,  of  the  5th  and  10th  inst.  the  president  be 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS  PAINE.  79 

time  dismissed  from  the  excise  in  England,  he 
was  assailed  with  continuous  pains  of  hunger. 
His  salary  for  officiating  as  clerk  to  the  commit 
tee,  parsimonious  and  spunging  as  he  was,  was 


directed  to  assure  the  said  minister,  that  congress  do  fully, 
in  the  clearest  and  most  explicit  manner,  disavow  the  publi 
cations  referred  to  in  his  said  memorials ;  and  as  they  are 
convinced  by  indisputable  evidence,  that  the  supplies  shipped 
in  the  Amphitrite,  Seine,  and  Mercury  were  not  a  present, 
and  that  his  most  Christian  majesty,  the  great  and  generous 
ally  of  these  United  States,  did  not  preface  his  alliance  with 
any  supplies  whatever  sent  to  America,  so  they  have  not  au 
thorized  the  writer  of  the  said  publications  to  make  any  such 
assertions  as  are  contained  therein,  but  on  the  contrary  do 
highly  disapprove  of  the  same. 

"  Friday,  January  15,  1779. 

"  The  committee,  consisting  of  Mr.  M.  Smith,  Mr.  Ellery, 
Mr.  Drayton,  to  whom  was  referred  the  letter  of  the  28th  of 
November  last  from  Mons.  de  Francey,  having  brought  in  a 
report,  the  same  was  taken  into  consideration ;  and  thereup 
on, 

"  Rosolved,  That  according  to  the  agreement  entered  into 
with  Mr.  de  Francey,  agent  of  Mons.  de  Beaumarchais,  at 
York,  on  the  7th  day  of  April,  1778,  remittance  should  be 
made  with  all-convenient  dispatch  to  the  said  Mr.  de  Beau 
marchais. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  requisition  of  Mr.  de  Francey  in  his 
letter  of  the  28th  of  November  last,  is  reasonable,  and  that 
SOOO  hogsheads  of  tobacco,  on  account  of  these  United  States, 
be  purchased,  to  be  laden  on  board  the  ships  mentioned  in  the 
said  letter. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  following  letter  be  written  to. Mr.  de 
Beaumarchais : 


80  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

scarcely  adequate,  considering  the  depreciation 
of  the  currency  in  which  it  was  paid,  to  the  ex 
penses  of  his  board.  He  had  therefore  made  no 
provision  for  the  forlorn  condition  in  which  he 


"SIR, 

"  r)The  congress  of  the  United  States  of  America,  sensible  of 
your  exertions  in  their  favour,  present  you  their  thanks,  and 
assure  you  of  their  regard. 

"  They  lament  the  inconveniences  you  have  suffered  by  the 
great  advances  made  in  support  of  these  states.  Circumstan 
ces  have  prevented  a  compliance  with  their  wishes,  but  they 
will  take  the  most  effectual  measures  in  their  power  to  dis 
charge  the  debt  due  to  you. 

"  The  liberal  sentiments  and  extensive  views  which  alone 
could  dictate  a  conduct  like  yours,  are  conspicuous  in  your  ac 
tions  and  adorn  your  character.  While  with  great  talents  you 
served  your  prince,  you  have  gained  the  esteem  of  this  infant 
republic,  and  will  receive  the  merited  applause  of  a  new 
world. 

BY    ORDER    OF    CONGRESS, 

President. 
"  Saturday,  January  16,  1779. 

"  Resol~vedy  That  congress  agree  to  the  report. 

"  Congress  took  into  consideration  the  letters  from  Thomas 
Paine  ;  whereupon  a  motion  was  made, 

"  That  Mr.  Thomas  Paine,  secretary  to  the  committee  ol 
foreign  affairs,  be  dismissed  from  office. 

44  To  which  an  amendment  was  offered  as  a  substitute  in 
the  following  words, 

"  That  Thomas  Paine  be  directed  to  attend  at  the  bar  of 
this  house  on  Monday  next,  at  11  o'clock,  to  answer  whether 
he  had  any  direction  or  permission  from  the  committee  of  for* 
eign  affairs,  for  the  publications  of  which,  he  confessed  him 
self  to  be  the  author  when  he  was  before  the  house  on  the  6th 
day  of  January  last. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE".  81 

now  found  himself,  for  as  yet  publick  bounty  had 
not,  bating  his  maintenance  by  the  army  while  he 
was  with  it,  been  extended  to  him  for  his  political 
labours.  Thus  situated,  thus  abandoned  by  the  as- 


*'  Another  amendment  was  moved  as  a  substitute  to  both  the 
foregoing  propositions  in  the  words  following, 

"  Whereas  congress  were  about  to  proceed  against  Thomas 
Paine,  secretary  t©  the  committee  of  foreign  affairs,  for  certain 
publications  and  letter?  as  being  inconsistent  with  his  official 
character  and  duty,  when  the  said  Thomas  Paine  resigned 
his  office ;  thereupon, 

"  Resolved,  That  the  said  Thomas  Paine  is  dismissed  from 
any  farther  service  in  the  said  office,  and  the  committee  of 
foreign  affairs  are  directed  to  call  upon  the  said  Thomas  Paine, 
and  receive  from  him  on  oath  all  public  letters,  papers  and 
documents  in  his  possession. 

"  A  fourth  amendment  was  moved  as  a  substitute  to  the 
whole  in  the  words  following, 

"  Resolved,  That  the  committee  of  foreign  affairs  be  direct 
ed  to  take  out  of  the  possession  of  Thomas  Paine,  all  the  pub 
lic  papers  entrusted  to  him  as  secretary  to  that  committee, 
and  then  discharge  him  from  that  office. 

"  When  the  question  was  about  to  ba  put,  a  division  was 
called  for,  and  the  question  being  put  to  adopt  the  first  part, 

"  Passed  in  the  affirmative. 

**  On  the  question  to  adopt  the  second  part,  the  yeas  and 
nays  being  required  by  Mr.  Lovell, 

"  It  was  resolved  in  the  affirmative, 

"  The  question  being  then  about  to  be  put  on  the  main  ques,- 
tion,  a  division  was  called  for,  and  the  yeas  and  nays  being 
required  on  the  first  part  by  Mr.  M'Kean, 

"  Resolved,  unanimously  ^  in  the  affirmative. 

"  On  the  question  to  agree  to  the  second  clause,  nameiy. 
L 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 


sembled  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  the  states,  he 
hired  himself  as  a  clerk  to  Owen  Biddle,  of  Phi- 
ladelph:a,(#)  In  this  clerkship,  where,  perhaps, 
he  had  no  secrets  to  betray,  he  prosecuted  his 


-  and  then  discharge  him  from  that  office,'  the  yeas  and  nay? 
being  required  by  Mr.  Penn, 


New-  Hampshire, 

Mr.   Whipfile, 

no  | 

Massachusetts-Bay, 

Mr.  Gerry, 

720*} 

Mr.  S.  Adams, 

720  r 

Mr.  Lovell, 

720  X" 

Mr.  Holten, 

r/z/  \ 

Rhode-Island, 

Mr.  Ellery, 

wo  7 

Mr.  Collins, 

«y3 

Connecticut, 

Mr.  Dyer, 

770  ">; 

Mr.  Root, 

720  _)  ' 

J\'e-w-  York, 

Mr.  Jay, 

ftv? 

Mr.  Lewis, 

cy5' 

Pennsylvania, 

Mr.  Roberdeau, 
Mr.  Searle, 
Mr.  Atlee, 
Mr.  Shijifien, 

720  "^ 

720  f 

cry  r 

720  1 

Delaware, 

Mr.  M^Kean, 

710  |  i 

Maryland, 

Mr.  Paca, 

d-y^l 

Mr.  Carmichael, 

«!/y 

Virginia, 

Mr.  T.Adams, 

ay-J 

Mr.  /?.  Z.  £«-, 

no  >< 

Mr.  AT.  Smith, 

cz/  J 

North-  Carolina, 

Mr.  Penn, 

ay~) 

Mr.  ./£//, 

ay  C( 

Mr.  Burke, 

ttyJ 

South-Carolina, 

Mr.  Drayton, 

dz/  f 

Mr.  Hutson, 

t  ^ 

wo 


Georgia, 


no 


»!/ 


divided 


Mr.  Langworthy,    ay  \  ay 


"  So  the  states  being  divided  the  clause  was  lost." 

(0  An  attorney,  I  believe  :    see  his  letter  to  congress  in  the 
Appendix.  • 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS  PAINE.  83 

controversy  with  Deane,  who,  he  remarks,  "  ab^ 
sconded  and  took  poison"  in  England.(?/)  The 
poisoning,  if  true,  but  it  is  not,  must,  I  have  no 
doubt  from  his  manner  of  mentioning  it,  from 
the  constitution  of  his  mind,  and  from  the  ma 
lignity  of  feelings  which  he  indulged,  have 
afforded  him  great  satisfaction.  But  Deane, 
whatever  causes  he  might  have  had  in  other  res 
pects  for  self-upbraiding  and  condemnation,  and 
he  must  have  ha'd  many,  certainly  had  none  in 
reference  to  Beaumarchais's  claim,  which,  as  he 
knew  before  he  "  absconded,"  had,  through  the 
impertinent  meddling  of  Paine,  succeeded  with 
congress.  The  probability  is  that  he  triumphantly 
returned  to  Paris, (77)  to  receive  from  Beaumar- 
chais,  his  colleague  in  the  fraud,  the  infamous 
reward  of  his  infamous  conduct. 

Having  finished  his  disputation  with  Deane, 
and  being,  it  is  probable,  uneasy  in  the  service  of 
Mr.  Biddle,  he  somehow  obtained,  early  in  the 
year  1780,  the  subordinate  appointment  of  clerk 
to  the  assembly  of  Pennsylvania. (w) 

As  if  nothing  had  happened  personally  to 
himself,  he  now  returned  to  the  CRISIS,  and  pub 
lished,  in  March,  1780,  the  ninth  number.  This 

(u}     See  his  letter  to  congress  in  the  Appendix, 

(x»)     From  Paris  he  went  to  London. 

(w)    See  his  letter  to  congress  in  the  Appendix. 


84  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

is  a  continuation  of  his  address  to  the  people  of 
England.  It  is  an  ordinary  description  of  the 
ordinary  calamities  of  war,  but  mentions  them 
as  operating  with  almost  peculiar  severity  on  the 
colonists.  Being  well  calculated  to  keep  up  the 
revolutionary  spirit,  it  was  probably  serviceable. 

In  the  following  June,  he  published,  at  Phila 
delphia,  the  tenth  number  of  the  CRISIS.  After 
desolating  the  southern  states,  Charleston  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  British  forces.  The 
purpose  of  the  number  was  to  inspire  confidence 
by  dissipating  gloom.  He  represents  the  attacks 
in  the  south  as  so  many  indications  of  military 
weakness,  and  zealously  concludes  with  the  re 
mark,  that  "  the  man  who  does  not  now  feel  for 
the  honour  of  the  best  and  noblest  cause  that  ever 
a  country  engaged  in,  and  exert  himself  accord 
ingly,  is  no  longer  worthy  of  a  peaceable  resi 
dence  among  a  people  determined  to  be  free." 

Number  eleven  of  the  CRISIS  was  published, 
at  Philadelphia,  the  succeeding  October.  The 
fiscal  means  of  congress  being  exhausted,  from 
an  unaccountable  unwillingness  in  the  people  to 
bear  increased  burthens,  he  runs  a  consoling 
parallel  between  the  expenses  of  England  in  car 
rying  on  the  war,  and  those  of  her  American 
antagonist ;  between  the  taxes  of  the  one  nation 
and  those  of  the  other.  He  points  out  a  mode 
in  which  he  thinks  additional  supplies,  which  are 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  85 

indispensable,  maybe  commensurately  raised  with 
out  greatly  incommoding  the  people.  Congress  had 
recommended  the  funding  of  its  paper  at  forty 
for  one,  and  the  issuing  of  new  money  in  lieu  of 
it.  Against  the  recommendation,  Pennsylvania 
petitioned  her  assembly.  Paine  ardently  pleads 
in  favour  of  a  compliance,  and  bluntly  tells  the 
petitioners  that  they  are  unacquainted  with  the 
subject.  He  knew  the  great  and  urgent  wants 
of  the  army,  and  he  was  for  supplying  them  at 
all  events,  but  the  means  were  of  more  difficult 
access  than  he  had  imagined. 

Amid  this  financical  distress,  congress  framed 
a  mission  to  France,  in  order  to  obtain  a  loan. — 
Col  Laurens,  son  of  the  late  president  of  congress, 
was  appointed  to  fill  it.  Paine,  at  the  solicitation 
of  the  colonel,  he  says,(V)  but  certainly  without 
the  agency  or  approbation  of  congress,  accom 
panied  him  to  France,  but  in  what  capacity  is 
not  known,  as  Major  Jackson  was  the  colonel's 
secretary.  They  sailed  in  February,  1781 — ar 
rived  in  France  the  following  month — obtained 
a  loan  of  ten  millions  of  livres  and  a  present  of 


.      (x\  See  his  letter  to  congress  in  the  Appendix.    He  inti- 
•    mates   that   the  mission  originated   from  him,  and  takes  to 
himself  the  credit  of  it,  but  as  I  knew  him,  my  mind  involun 
tarily  doubts  almost   all  his  assertions.     He  was  rarely  to  be 
believed. 


86  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

six,  and  landed  in  America  the  succeeding  Au 
gust,  with  two  millions  and  a  half  in  silver.  Ac 
cording  to  Paine,  this  aid  enabled  the  army  to 
"  move  to  York-Town,"  where  Cornwallis  and 
his  troops  surrendered.(y) 

But  he  was  guilty  of  an  egregious  falsehood, 
The  combined  armies  under  Washington  and 
Rochambeau  had  moved  before  the  money  ar 
rived.  Assertion  so  strong  should  be  supported 
by  proof,  "  We  sailed  from  Brest,  Paine  ob 
serves,  in  the  Resolve  frigate  the  first  of  June, 
and  arrived  at  Boston  the  25th  of  August,  bring 
ing  with  us  two  millions  and  a  half  in  silver,  and 
convoying  a  ship  and  brig  laden  with  clothing 
and  military  stores.  The  money  was  transported 
in  sixteen  oiv  teams  to  the  national  bank  at  Phi 
ladelphia,  which  enabled  the  army  to  move  toYork- 
Town  to  attack,  in  conjunction  with  the  French 
army  under  Rochambeau,  the  British  army  under 
Cor?iwaUis."(z)  This  is  a  specimen,  a  poor  one 
indeed,  of  the  almost  treasonable  arguments 
which  his  invincible  attachment  to  France  in  pre 
ference  to  all  other  nations,  not  excepting  his 
"  beloved  America,"  often  prompted  him  to  use 
in  newspaper  effusions  in  the  years  1 807-8  ;  at-  \ 
tachment  strong  enough  to  have  led  him  to  a  \ 


(y}  See  his  letter  in  the  Appendix, 
(z)  See  his  letter  in  the  Appendix. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  87 

base  surrender  of  our  national  independence  to    y 
the  bloody  usurper.^ 

Now  if  I  show  that  the  attack  on  York-Town 
was  planned,  not  before  the  arrival  of  the  money 
in  August,  but  before  its  departure  from  Brest  in 
June,  and  that  in  pursuance  of  the  plan,  and  not 
in  consequence  of  the  supplies,  the  combined 
American  and  French  armies  had  moved  to 
wards  the  theatre  of  the  decisive  event,  I  humbly 
presume  that  I  shall  have  attached  to  the  memory 
of  Paine  the  falsehood  of  which  I  have  accused 
him.  To  do  this  nothing  more  is  necessary  than 
to  recur  to  the  history  of  the  revolutionary  war. 

"  May  6.  The  plan  of  operations  [against 
Cornwallis]  had  been  so  well  digested,  and  was 
so  faithfully  executed  by  the  different  command 
ers,  that  General  Washington  and  Count  Ro- 
chambeau  had  passed  the  British  head  quarters  at 
New- York,  and  were  considerably  advanced  in 
their  way  to  York-Town,  before  Count  De 
Grasse  had  reached  the  American  coast."(#) 

It  appears,  according  to  Ramsay,  that  the  plan 
was  laid  more  than  three  months  anteriour  to  the 
arrival  of  the  money  at  Boston  in  August,  and 
that  on  the  6th  of  May  the  armies  had  "  passed 
the  British  head  quarters  at  New- York,  and.  were 


(a)  Ramsay's  Hist.  Rev.  vol.  3,  p.  264, 


88  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

considerably  advanced  in  their  way  to  York 
Town.5'  /  j 

Gordon,  perhaps  generally  less  copious  and 
elegant,  is  yet  more  precise  to  the  point.  "  The 
French  and  American  armies  continued  their 
march  from  the  northward  till  they  arrived  at  the 
head  of  Elk.  The  greatest  harmony  subsisted 
between  Washington  and  Rochambeau.  The 
former  being  without  a  sufficiency  of  money  to 
supply  his  troops,  applied  to  the  Count  [do 
Grasse]  for  a  loan,  which  was  instantly  granted. 
General  Washington  and  Rochambeau,  with 
their  suites  and  other  officers,  arrived  at  Wil- 
liamsburgh  by  hard  travelling,  on  the  14th 

September."^) 

The  loan  then  was  applied  for  by  Washington 
when  he  was  at  the  head  of  Elk  in  Maryland, 
which  wyas  at  the  latter  end  of  August,  or,  at 
furthest,  on  the  first  or  second  of  September. 
At  this  time  the  money,  which  arrived  at  Boston 
on  the  25th  of  August,  and  was  from  thence 
conveyed  in  ox  teams  to  Philadelphia,  must  have 
been  on  its  way  to,  for  it  could  not  have  arrived 
at,  the  "  National  Bank."  The  combined  ar 
mies,  therefore,  had  not  only  "  mov*,d"  without 
the  money  of  which  Paine  speaks,  to  which  he 


Gordon's  Hist.  Rev.  vol.  3.  p.  254. 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE,  89 

adverts  as  saving  America,  on  which  he  vaunt- 
ingly  plumes  himself,  and  the  credit  of  which  he 
arrogantly  places  to  his  own  account,  but  Wash 
ington  had  arrived  at  the  head  of  Elk  without  a 
cent  of  it,  and  even  then,  so  far  from  relying  on, 
or  even  thinking  of  it,  we  find  him  applying  for 
a  loan  to  de  Grasse  to  enable  him  to  complete  his 
march  to  the  scene  of  triumph.  It  is  probable 
that  when  Washington  reached  Williamsburgh, 
he  was  ignorant  of  the  arrival  of  the  money  at 
Boston. 

Number  twelve  of  the  Crisis,  without  date,  was 
published  early  in  the  year  1782.  The  king  had 
delivered  a  speech  on  which  it  is  a  commentary. 
In  the  speech  his  majesty  speaks  of  himself  as  the 
sovereign  of  a  free  people.  Paine  considers  the 
term  as  misapplied,  ridicules  it,  and  attributes  it 
to  fear  in  the  king  lest  his  people  should  "  send 
him  to  Hanover."  With  wit,  at  whatever  ex- 
pence,  we  are  pleased,  but  with  miserable  abor 
tions  of  it  we  are  always  disgusted.  The  num 
ber  contains,  however,  some  sensible  reflections. 

The  CRISIS,  number  thirteen,  published  at  Phi 
ladelphia  in  March,  1782,  is  on  the  finances  of 
the  states.  It  has  no  interest.  The  war  was 
now  in  fact  over,  and  Paine's  pen  declined  with 
the  discontinuance  of  military  operations.  He 
lived  in  a  tempest.  He  was  lost  in  a  calm. 

In  the  following  May,  he  published,  at  Philadel- 
M 


90  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

phia,  the  CRISIS  number  fourteen,  on  the  "Present 
state  of  News."  Conjecturing  that  England 
would  first  endeavour  to  detach  France  from 
America  and  make  a  separate  peace  with  her, 
and  that  afterwards*  if  unsuccessful,  she  wrould 
make  a  similar  attempt  upon  the  fidelity  of 
the  states,  it  sets  forth  the  reasons  for  the  jea 
lousy  which  it  suggests.  The  astonishment  and 
indignation  which,  equally  overpowering  the 
organs  of  speech  and  the  faculty  of  the  pen,  the 
imaginary  artifice  of  the  British  court  excited  in 
him,  he  thus  forcibly  describes,  happily  illus 
trates. 

"We  sometimes  experience  sensations  to  wThich 
language  is  not  equal.  The  conception  is  too 
bulky  to  be  born  alive,  and  in  the  torture  of 
thinking,  we  stand  dumb.  Our  feelings,  impri 
soned  by  their  magnitude,  find  no  way  out,  and 
in  the  struggle  of  expression,  every  finger  tries 
to  be  a  tongue.  The  machinery  of  the  body 
seems  too  little  for  the  mind,  and  we  look  about 
for  helps  to  show  our  thoughts  by." 

That  which  he  had  imagined  never  happened  ; 
that  which  he  had  not  imagined,  and  of  which  he 
seems  not  to  have  thought,  really  occurred. 
France,  when  peace  was  on  the  tapis,  endea 
voured,  by  propositions  which  she  made  to 
England,  but  which  England  rejected,  essential 
ly  to  deprive  the  states  of  the  sovereignty  for 


LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  1 

which  they  had  long  and  arduously  strug 
gled.^) 

In  the  same  month  he  published,  at  Philadel 
phia,  addressed  to  Sir  Guy  Carlton,  number  fif 
teen  of  the  CRISIS.  Passing  by  indulgently  some 
palpable  malice  and  indiscriminate  aspersion,  this 
is  an  able  appeal  to  Sir  Guy  on  the  atrocious 
murder  of  Capt  Hudcly,  by  Lippincot,  a  refugee, 
and  the  interesting  situation  of  Capt.  Asgill.  The 
issue  of  AsgilPs  captivity  and  doom  is  known. 
After  suffering  all  the  pang's  of  death,  diminish 
ed  only  by  the  interposition  of  that  comforting 
and  encouraging  hope  which  under  the  pressure 
of  events  most  exciting  to  despair  never  wholly 
forsakes  us,  his  life  was  spared.  The  humanity 
of  Washington  could  not  disport  in  the  blood  of 
amiable  innocence  in  revenge  for  a  murder  com 
mitted  by  a  wretch  over  whose  actions  Asgill  had 
no  controul. 

In  October,  1782,  he  published,  at  Philadel 
phia,  number  sixteen  of  the  CRISIS,  addressed  to 
Earl  Shelburne.  Peace  was  about  to  be  con 
cluded,  and  his  Lordship,  who  was  opposed  to 
it,  had  delivered  a  very  unseasonable  and  silly 
speech  preparatory  to  a  discussion  of  its  terms  in 


(r )  See  Mr.  Jay's  and   Mr.  John  Adams's  correspondence 
with  Congress. 


92  LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

Parliament.     On   this  speech,  Paine  invectively 
and  un^rofitably  animadverts. 

The  last  CRISIS  was  published  at  Philadelphia, 
April  19th,  1783.  Peace  was  now  substantially 
concluded,  and  the  INDEPENDENCE  of  the  UNITED 
STATES  acknowledged.  He  who  if  not  the  sug- 
gester  was  the  ablest  literary  advocate  of  inde 
pendence,  could  do  no  less,  when  independence 
was  acquired,  than  salute  the  nation  on  the  great 
event.  He  is  not,  however,  content  with 
proudly  reflecting  on  past  and  triumphantly  re 
velling  in  present  circumstances.  He  still  looks 
forward ;  still  suggests  >  still  advises.  He  points 
to  the  formation  of  a  national  character,  that 
broad  and  solid  foundation  of  national  safety, 
happiness,  greatness,  and  glory,  and  strenuously 
recommends  an  UNION  OF  THE  STATES. 

This  was  not,  however,  though  so^denominated, 
the  last  CRISIS.  In  the  folio  wing  October  he  publish 
ed,  at  New-York,  the  concluding  number,  which 
is  a  trifling  notice  of  Lord  Sheffield's  "  Observa 
tions  on  the  Commerce  of  the  American  States ;" 
but  as  he  seems  to  have  been  unacquainted  with 
commercial  principles  and  details,  his  Lordship 
had  no  formidable  opponent  in  Paine. 

*< Public  Good,"  a  pamphlet  of  thirty-three 
octavo  pages,  written  in  the  year  1780,  and  pub 
lished  it  does  not  appear  when,  but  probably 
soon  after  the  peace,  relates  wrholly  to  Virginia 


LIFE    OF    THOMAS-  PAINE.  93 

and  her  claim  to  the  vacant  Western  Territory. 
It  is  an  elaborate  investigation  of  a  royal  patent, 
very  local  and  uninteresting. 

His  letter  to  the  Abbe  Raynal,  an  octavo  pam 
phlet  of  fifty-eight  pages,  published  at  Philadel 
phia,  August,  1782,  is  a  repetition  of  the  argu 
ments  and  facts  contained  in  Common  Sense  and 
the  Crisis.  There  could  have  been  no  motive 
for  writing  it  but  that  of  detecting  the  Abbe  in 
some  plagiarism  from  Common  Sense, 

In  1783,  when  the  army  was  on  the  point  of 
being  disbanded,  General  Washington,  at  the 
request  of  congress,  removed  his  quarters  to 
Rocky  Hill,  the  seat  of  their  deliberations.  The 
general  availed  himself  of  this  opportunity  to  ob 
tain  from  congress  some  permanent  provision  for 
Paine.  One  of  the  several  members  with  whom 
he  conversed  on  the  subject,  has  related  to  me 
what  follows.  Paine,  the  general  remarked,  was  at  ^ 
least  supposed  to  have  rendered  his  country  some 
services  by  his  writings,  and  that  it  would  be 
pleasing  to  him,  and  perhaps  obviate  charges  of 
ingratitude,  if  Congress  would  place  him  in  a 
state  of  ease  :  that  he  had  offered  Paine  a  seat 
at  his  table,  but  that  he  would  doubtless  prefer 
something  more  independent.  In  consequence"1 
of  the  general's  suggestion,  a  motion  was  made 
in  congress  by  my  informant  to  appoint  Paine 
Historiographer  to  the  United  States^  with  a  sal- 


94  UFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

ary  sufficient  to  support  him  through  life,  but  it 
was  received  by  the  house  with  such  a  burst  of 
indignation,  that  the  mover  found  it  prudent  to 
withdraw  it.  Congress  had  not  got  over  the 
irritation  which  Paine's  conduct  in  Deane's  case 
had  excited. 

/         In  1785,  congress  granted  him  three  thousand 
dollars  for  his  revolutionary  writings. 

"  Friday,  August  26,   1785. 

"  On  the  report  of  a  committee  consisting  of 
Mr.  Gerry,  Mr.  Petit,  and  Mr.  King,  to  whom 
was  referred  a  letter  of  the  1 3th  from  Thomas 
Paine : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  early,  unsolicited,  and 
continued  labours  of  Mr.  Thomas  Paine,  in 
explaining  and  enforcing  the  principles  of  the 
late  revolution  by  ingenious  and  timely  pub 
lications  upon  the  nature  of  liberty  and  civil 
government,  have  been  well  received  by  the 
citizens  of  these  states,  and  merit  the  appro 
bation  of  congress  ;  and  that  in  consideration  of 
these  services,  and  the  benefits  produced  thereby, 
Mr.  Paine  is  entitled  to  a  liberal  gratification 
from  the  United  States." 

"  Monday,  October  3,  1785. 

"  On  the  report  of  a  committee  consisting  of 
Mr.  Gerry,  Mr.  Howell,  and  Mr.  Long,  to  whom 
were  referred  sundry  letters  from  Mr.  Thomas 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 


95 


Paine,  and  a  report  on  his  letter  of  14th  of  Sep 
tember  : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  board  of  treasury  take 
order  for  paying  to  Mr.  Thomas  Paine  the  sum 
of  three  thousand  dollars,  for  the  considerations 
mentioned  in  the  resolution  of  the  26th  of  August 
last."  Journals  of  Congress. 

As  the  journals  of  congress  do  not  of  course 
containPaine's  letter  mentioned  in  the  preamble  of 
the  resolution  of  August  26,  arid  I  have  not  been 
able  to  obtain  a  copy  of  it,  we  are  referred  for  its 
import  to  Paine  himself.  One  would  naturally  con 
clude  from  the  phraseology  of  the  journals,  that 
the  letter  was  an  application  to  congress  claiming 
compensation  for  his  revolutionary  writings. 
Upon  that  letter  the  committee  report,  that  for 
his  "  early,  unsolicited,  and  continued  labours* 
in  explaining  and  enforcing  by  numerous  timely 
publications,"  &c.  (referring  undoubtedly  to  his 
Common  Sense  and  the  Crisis,  for  these  are  the 
only  productions  which,  during  the  revolution, 
he  published)  he  is  "  entitled  to  a  liberal 
compensation."  This  liberal  compensation  is 
three  thousand  dollars,  or  about  six  hundred 
guineas  !  Yet  as  Paine  asserts  in  his  Common 
Sense,  repeats  in  the  Crisis,  the  Rights  of  Man, 
in  almost  all  his  subsequent  European  publica 
tions,  in  the  Letters  which  he  addressed  to  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States  after  his  return 


96  LIFE    OF*   THOMAS    PAINE. 

from  France,  and  in  his  letter  to  congress  in 
1808,(rf)  that  he  never  claimed,  nor  thought  of 
claiming,  being  too   disinterested,  any  compen 
sation  for  his   revolutionary  writings,   there  is 
either  a  capital  errour  in  the  phraseology  of  the 
journals,  or  Paine  has  imposed  himself  upon  the 
•  world  for  a  more  immaculate  patriot  than  he 
.  really  was  :  the  latter  is  by  much  the  more  prob 
able. 

In  his  letter  to  congress  of  1808,(<?)  he  claims 
compensation  for  accompanying  Colon'el  Laurens 
to  France,  and  for  nothing  else,  and  he  thinks 
he  is  the  more  entitled  to  it,  because  the  supplies 
which  they  obtained,  or  rather  which  he  obtain 
ed,  for  he  makes  himself  the  hero  of  the  piece, 
enabled  Washington  to  attack  Cornwallis.  I 
have  already  noticed  the  supplies,  and  the  mo 
tion  which  Paine  affirms  they  gave  to  Washing 
ton's  army. 

Now  if  we  suppose,  and  we  cannot,  I  think, 
but  suppose,  his  letter  of  1808,  to  be  in  substance 
his  letter  of  August  13,  1785,  mentioned  in  the 
journals,  then  the  latter  refers  to  the  mission  of 
Colonel  Laurens  only,  and  we  are  of  course  in 
the  possession  of  materials  enabling  us  to  judge 
of  the  propriety  of  his  application,  and  of  the 
nature  of  the  decision  of  congress  upon  it. 

(cf)   See  the  Appendix.  (r)    See  the  Appendix- 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  97 

For  accompanying  Colonel  Laurens  he  certain-   \ 
ly  had  no  claim  on  congress  for  recompense.    ) 
Did   congress  employ  him  ?     No.     Did  congress 
sanction  the  employment  of   him    by  Colonel 
Laurens  ?       Did  they    approve  of   it  ?      Were 
they,  consulted  about  it?     Certainly  not,    for 
congress,  by  whom  he  had  been  dismissed  for 
betraying  official   trust*  could  not,  without  for 
feiting  all  claim  to  consistency  and  sense,  have 
confidence  in  him  in  the  mission.     Congress  con 
sequently  decided   in  August,    1785,  if  in  his 
letter  of  that  month  he  claimed  compensation  for 
going  to  France,  and  if  he  did  not  the  case  is 
infinitely  stronger  against  him,  that  he  had  no  ^ 
title  to  compensation.     Congress,  therefore,  in 
1785,  resolved,  whatever  the  nature  of  his  ap 
plication  at  that  time  was,  that  for  his  revolu 
tionary  writings  only,  he  was  entitled  to  a  liberal 
gratification.      If   congress  were   really   of  this 
opinion,  and  we  are  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
they  were,  so  finding  it  on  the  journals,  then 
their  ideas  of  liberality  were  singular  enough. 
For  whether  Paine  was  or  was  not  a  patriot,  a^d 
that  he  was  not  is  more  than  probable  ;  whether 
he  was  or  was  not  in  the  excise  a  dissatisfied 
and  from  it  a  rejected  placeman,  and  he  undoubt 
edly  was,  is  out  of  the  question  in  relation  to  the 
effect  which  Common  Sense  and  the  Crisis  had 
on  American  independence.     That  effect  was 

N 


98  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

unquestionably  great,  and,  therefore,  if  his 
"  early,  unsolicited,  and  continued  labours"  had 
been  "  well  received  by  the  citizens"  and  had 
*'  benefited"  the  states,  the  recompense  should 
have  been  commensurate  with  the  benefit.  Was 
a  grant  of  three  thousand  dollars  of  that  charac 
ter  ?  If  with  great  ability  to  reward  exertions 
which  were  deemed  meritorious  and  beneficial ; 
with  an  immense  domain,  not  indeed  immediate 
ly  productive ;  with  resources  capable  of  being 
called  forth  to  the  utmost  amplitude  of  the  ut 
most  hope  ;  with  a  debt  worthy  of  consideration 
only  as  a  precious  bond  of  tranquillity  and 

\r  union;  if  with  these  rich  possessions  congress 
considered  three  thousand  dollars  a  liberal  com 
pensation,  then  we  are  acquainted  with  the  value 
which  they  placed  on  the  quantity  and  quality 
of  his  revolutionary  waitings. 
J  Two  only  of  the  states  noticed  by  gratuities 

^  his  revolutionary  labours.  Pennsylvania,  the 
seat  of  his  Common  Sense  a.nd  the  Crisis,  a  state 
which,  if  his  productions  were  honourable,  was 
most  honoured,  gave  him,  in  the  year  1 785,  by 
an  act  of  the  legislature,  five  hundred  pounds 
currency !  . 

New- York  was  more  liberal/  VThey  gave  him 
the  confiscated  estate  of  Frederick  Davoe,  a  roy 
alist.  This  estate,  situate  at  New-Rochelle, 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  99 

county  of  Westchester,  consisting  of  more  than 
three  hundred  acres  of  land,  was  in  high  culti 
vation.  There  was  upon  it,  besides  out-build 
ings,  an  elegant  stone  house,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  by  twenty-eight  feet. 

In  1786,  he  published,  in  Philadelphia,  "  Dis 
sertations  on  Government,  the  affairs  of  the 
bank,  aad  paper  money,"  an  octavo  pamphlet  of 
sixty-four  pages.  .The  bank  alluded  to  is  the 
bank  of  North  America.  There  is  an  unhappy 
fatality  attending  a  similar  establishment.  By  men 
borne  down  by  a  heavy  load  of  vulgar  prejudice, 
or  lamentably  labouring  under  incurable  igno 
rance,  or  utterly  disregarding  publick  utility  and 
faith  in  a  vehement  pursuit  of  sinister  purposes, 
the  bank  of  North  America  was  then,  as  the 
latter  has  been  since,  and  is  now,  systematically 
attacked.  Paine  gives  at  length  a  history  of  the 
origin  of  the  former,  which  is  so  closely  inter 
woven  with  the  revolution  and  allied  to  its  most 
distressing  period,  that  I  cannot  refuse  myself 
the  pleasure  of  briefly  describing  it. 

In  the  year  1780,  when  the  British  army, 
having  laid  waste  the  southern  states,  closed  its 
ravages  by  the  capture  of  Charleston  ;  when  the 
financial  sources  of  congress  were  dried  up  ; 
when  the  publick  treasury  was  empty,  and  the 
army  of  independence  paralised  by  want,  a 
voluntary  subscription  for  its  relief  was  raised  in 


100  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

Philadelphia. (/)  This  voluntary  fund,  amount 
ing  to  three  hundred  thousand  pounds,  after 
wards  converted  into  a  bank  by  the  subscribers, 
headed  by  Robert  Morris,  supplied  the  wants  of 
the  army.  Probably  the  aids  which  it  furnished 
enabled  Washington  to  carry  into  execution  his 
well-concerted  plan  against  Cornwallis.  Con 
gress,  in  the  year  1781,  incorporated  the  sub 
scribers  to  the  fund  under  the  title  of  the  Bank 
of  North  America.  In  the  following  year  it  was 
further  incorporated  by  an  act  of  the  Pennsylva 
nia  assembly. 

When  the  war  was  over — when  extreme  dis 
tress  had  ceased,  and  the  services  which  the  bank 
had  rendered  were  forgotten,  it  was  attacked  as 
an  institution  incompatible  with  individual  pros 
perity  and  publick  safety.  All  those  recondite 
arguments  which  we  every  day  hear,  that  banks 
are  dangerous  to  freedom,  were,  with  the  cus 
tomary  eloquence  of  those  who  use  them,(g-) 

(/)  Paine  states  that  he  drew  five  hundred  dollars  of  the 
salary  of  his  clerkship  to  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly,  and 
subscribed  it  to  the  fund.  As  usual,  he  takes  all  the  merit 
of  the  plan  and  subscription  to  himself.  He  proposed  it.  He 
was  every  thing. 

(5*)  A  sort  of  unread,  innate  republicans,  who  make  them 
selves  happy  with  thinking,  that  their  tendency  to  a  state  of 
perfect  freedom  is  determined  by  the  near  approaches  which 
they  make  towards  the  savage  condition.  I  must  do  them  the 
justice  to  say  that  their  progress  is  uncommonly  rapid. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  101 

forcibly  urged  in  petitions  to  the  Pennsylvania 
assembly  against  the  bank  of  North  America. 
The  assembly,  which  was  truly  the  representa 
tive  of  the  petitioners,  which  thought  as  they 
thought,  and  was  as  wise  as  they  were,  was 
prayed  to  repeal  the  state  act  of  incorporation. 
The  petitions  were  referred  to  a  select  committee, 
who,  recapitulating  in  character  the  deep  reason 
ing  of  the  petitioners,  reported  in  favour  of  the 
repeal.  Here  was  an  attempt  under  the  pretence 
of  promoting  liberty,  happiness,  and  safety,  to 
violate  them  all  by  a  most  tyrannical  iavasion  of 
private  property  !  Paine  very  unceremoniously 
and  vigourously  assailed  both  the  assembly  and 
its  petitioners,  and  probably  averted  the  act  of 
despotism  which  the  freemeji  were  about  to  com 
mit. 

Paine  is  now  to  figure  on  another  and  a  differ* 
ent  stage.  We  must  follow  him  to  Europe. 
He  had  long  formed  the  design  of  revolutionizing 
England,  and  if  he  had  not  the  arrogance  to 
suppose  he  could  succeed,  he  had  the  turpitude 
to  attempt  to  carry  his  project  into  execution. 

"  During  the  war,  in  the  latter  end  of  the  year  ^^ 
1780,  I  formed  to  myself  a  design  of  coming 
over  to  England,  and  communicated  it  to  Gene 
ral  Greene.  I  was  strongly  impressed  with  the 
idea,  that,  if  I  could  get  over  to  England  with 
out  being  known  and  only  remain  in  safety  till  I 


102  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

could  get  out  a  publication,  that  I  could  open  the 
eyes  of  the  country  with  respect  to  the  madness 
and  stupidity  of  its  government.  I  saw  that  the 
parties  in  parliament  had  pitted  themselves  as  far 
as  they  could  go,  and  could  make  no  new  im 
pression  on  each  other.  General  Greene  wrote 
very  pressingly  to  me  to  give  up  the  design, 
which,  with  reluctance,  I  did.  But  I  am  now 
certain,  that,  if  I  could  have  executed  it,  that  it 
would  not  have  been  altogether  unsuccessful."^) 
It  was  of  importance  to  Paine  to  represent 
'  himself  in  England  as  a  man  of  importance  in 
the  United  States.  Strongly  impressed  with  this 
idea,  and  much  as  he  ridiculed  and  affected  to 
be  opposed  to  titles,  we  have  seen  him  an 
nex  to  his  name  the  appendage  of  "  secreta 
ry  for  foreign  affairs.'/  In  the  same  spirit  and 
practice  of  imposture,  from  the  same  bad  motive, 
and  with  a  worse  view,  he  connects  himself  with 
the  skilful,  enterprising,  and  warlike  Greene. 
In  the  year  1780,  Greene  was  probably  too  much 
employed  in  the  southern  states,  the  defence  of 
which  had  been  committed  to  his  care,  to  attend 
to  Paine 's  detestable  scheme  for  revolutionizing 
England.  Besides,  Paine  was  then  in  disgrace, 
and  almost  in  want  of  bread.  It  was  but  Ihe 


(A)  Note  in  the  Rights  of  Man,  part  2,  Philadelphia,  1797. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  103 

preceding  year  that  he  had  been  dismissed  by 
congress  with  every  epithet  of  opprobrium  that 
legislative  decorum  could  use.  If  Greene  noticed 
him  before  his  dismission,  which  is  probable, 
after  it  he  must  have  thought  him  unworthy  of 
his  attention.  Had  Paine  told  us,  that  when  '•' 
banished  from  the  confidence  and  employ  of 
congress — when  forced  by  imperious  circumstan 
ces,  as  in  the  year  1780,  into  the  ungracious 
service  of  Mr.  Eiddle — when  all  propitious  scenes 
had  closed  upon  him,  he  thought  of  returning  to 
England  to  stir  up  commotion,  that  he  might  find 
in  national  uproar  individual  gratification,  he 
might  have  been  believed. 

Having,  in  the  year  1785,  procured  from  con 
gress  by  much  importunity  three  thousand  dol 
lars,  from  Pennsylvania  five  hundred  pounds, 
and  from  the  opulent  and  more  liberal  state  of 
New- York  the  confiscated  estate  of  Mr.  Davoe, 
he  sailed,  in  April,  1787,(/)  from  the  United 
States  for  France.  In  Paris,  he  exhibited  to  the 
Academy  of  Sciences  the  model  of  his  bridge. 

At  this  period  the  French  revolutionary  prin-> 
ciples,  principles  which  uprooted  and  laid  waste 
every  thing  valuable,  were  vigourously  germi 
nating  in  that  ill  fated  country.  Upstart  philo-> 


(/)    See  his  letter  to  general  Washington. 


104  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

sophers  in  Paris,  then  in  daily  intercourse  with 
Mr.  Jefferson,  were  plotting  confusion.  Men 
without  wealth  were  eyeing  wealth  to  be  plun 
dered.  Atheists  were  sacking  the  churches  in 
thought.  Sanguinary  wretches,  with  honied 
words  issuing  from  their  lips,  were  revelling  by 
anticipation  in  blood.  That  Paine  was  admitted 
into  the  philosophical  caverns  of  the  philgsophick 
banditti,  is  probable.  What  these  tigers  of  Eu 
rope  machinated  for  the  benefit  of  France,  of 
England,  and  of  the  world,  is  left  to  conjecture, 
but  after  what  Europe  and  America  have  seen 
and  suffered,  we  cannot,  I  think,  conjecture 
amiss. 

From  France,  Paine  passed  over  to  England 
with  the  model  of  his  bridge  :  he  arrived  in 
London  in  September,  1787.  From  London,  he 
went  to  Thetford  to  see  his  mother,  whom  he 
had  the  merit  of  allowing  nine  shillings  sterling 
a  week  for  her  support,  until  his  American  re 
compense  money  was  expended.  In  England, 
he  became  acquainted  with  my  friend  THOMAS 
WALKER,  of  Manchester,  a  man  than  whom  one 
more  enlightened  and  patriotick,  more  generous 
v  and  noble,  perhaps  never  lived.  Mr.  Walker, 
the  friend  and  companion  of  Fox,  was,  what  the 
Washingtons,  the  Clintons,  the  Hancocks,  and 
the  Adamses  were  before  the  declaration  of  in 
dependence  was  forced  upon  the  colonies,  an 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS  PAINE.  105 

ENGLISH  WHIG.  He  was  indeed  a  zealous  advo 
cate  of  a  reform  in  parliament  that  would  have 
led,  or  I  am  now  greatly  mistaken,  to  a  revolu 
tion  which  he  would  have  abhorred,  for  he  was  a 
rational  and  solid  friend  of  freedom,  and  had  no 
inclination  to  the  shedding  of  English  blood  by 
English  hands.  Principally  at  the  expense  of 
Mr.  Walker,  who  was  a  liberal  encourager  of 
the  arts,  Paine  went  to  Rotheram,  in  Yorkshire, 
where  an  iron  arch  of  his  bridge  was  cast.  The 
bridge  obtained  for  him  amongst  the  mathema 
ticians  of  Europe  a  high  reputation. 

Early  in  the  year  1788,  he  published  in  Lon 
don,  his  "  Prospects  on  the  Rubicon/'  an  octavo 
pamphlet  of  thirty-three  pages.  The  United 
Provinces  having  abridged  the  assumed  power  of 
the  prince  of  Orange,  and  finding  themselves  in 
consequence  involved  with  the  Prussian  mo 
narch,  who  chose  to  consider  the  curtailment  as 
a  personal  offence  to  him,  had  successfully  ap 
plied  for  succour  to  Louis  the  XVI.  England, 
it  was  thought,  would  embark  in  the  war,  which 
seemed  to  be  threatened.  The  "  Rubicon"  was 
on  this  subject,  but  possessing  no  merit  it  at 
tracted  no  notice.  It  betrays,  however,  his  revo 
lutionary  design.  "  The  people  of  France,  he 
observes,  are  beginning  to  think  for  themselves, 

and  the  people  of  England  resigning  up  the  priv- 

o 


106  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE, 

ilege  of  thinking.(y)  This  is  both  ill  intentioned 
and  false.  The  people  of  France  were  not  be 
ginning  to  think.  A  few  men  in  France,  begin 
ning  to  act-,  were  about  to  let  loose  the  people 
from  all  restraint  as  instruments  of  their  medi 
tated  mischief.  The  people  of  England  had 
long  thought  j  nor  will  they  ever  resign  their 
triple  and  undoubted  privileges  of  freely  thinking, 
freely  speaking,  and  freely  printing.  He 
meant  that  France  was  approximating  to  a  revo 
lution,  to  a  national  hurricane  of  national  pas 
sions,  and  that  England  was  calm.  He  knew 
that  revolution  was  intended  in  the  one  country, 
and  he  regretted,  that  from  present  appearances, 
tranquillity  could  not  be  disturbed  in  the  other. 

In  the  middle  of  the  year  1789,  he  was  ar- 
\  -j  .ted  in  London  for  debt.  The  books  of  White- 
side,  a  merchant  who  had  failed,  having  passed 
into  the  hands  of  his  creditors,  it  was  found  that 
Paine  was  a  debtor  to  the  bankrupt  estate  in  the 
sum  of  near  seven  hundred  pounds.  Arrested 
by  the  assignees,  he  was  released  from  a  three 
weeks  imprisonment  by.Clagget  and  Murdoch, 
American  merchants. 

How  he  became  indebted,  is  not  and  perhaps 
cannot  be  satisfactorily  explained.  It  is  alleged 
that  Whiteside  was  employed  to  receive  his  re- 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  107 

mittances  from  the  United  States.  Having  no 
property  but  the  American  donatives,  his  remit 
tances  must  have  consisted  of  two  sums  only  ; 
the  three  thousand  dollars  which  he  had  obtained 
from,  congress  in  1785,  and  the  five  hundred 
pounds  which  Pennsylvania  gave  him  in  the 
same  year.  As  he  remained  in  America  a  year 
and  a  half  after,  and  was  probably  in  debt  when 
the  grants  were  made,  it  requires  no  extraordi 
nary  degree  of  credulity  to  believe,  that  the  ag 
gregate  of  the  grants  had  been  diminished  before 
his  departure  from  America  upon  his  revolutiona 
ry  expedition  to  England.  But  I  deduce  the 
inference  from  a  supposition  which  is  contrary  to 
his  usual  practice;  that  if  he  was  in  debt,  he 
paid  his  debts,  and  that  when  he  was  able  to 
keep  himself,  he  did  not  force  himself  upon 
others  to  maintain  him. 

At  all  events  he  would  take  his  money  w7ith 
him,  or  with  some  of  it  purchase  bills  on  White- 
side,  we  will  suppose  ;  in  which  case  he  would 
see  them  transmitted,  or  be  assured  that  they 
would  be  by  a  different  vessel.  Whiteside  re 
ceives  them,  and  Paine  has  a  credit  with  him. 
He  arrived  in  London  in  September,  1787. 
Eighteen  months  after,  he  had  overdrawn  his 
merchant  in  the  sum  of  near  seven  hundred 
pounds.  He  could  not  in  this  short  time  have 
expended  that  publick  bounty  and  this  private 


108  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

exaction,  for  generally  he  lived  in  holes  and 
corners,  and  his  diet,  while  I  knew  him,  and 
long,  I  believe,  before,  was  the  poorest  and 
filthiest ;  and  though  he  was  generally  inebriated, 
yet  it  will  be  remembered  that'  brandy  was  his 
liquor,  and  that  if  he  drank  a  quart  a  day,  which 
he  did  not  sometimes  exceed,  it  could  not  have 
exhausted  his  pecuniary  funds.  As  to  the  cast 
ings  for  his  bridge,  they  cost  him  next  to  nothing, 
the  expense  having  been  principally  defrayed  by 
Mr.  Walker.  If  his  grants  were  not  expended, 
and  we  cannot  from  his  grovelling  and  imposing 
habits  imagine  how  they  could  have  been,  his 
unwarrantable  draughts  on  Whiteside  may  be 
explained  in  a  way  which  would  not  illumine  the 
dark  shades  of  his  character. 

Daily  occurrences  were  now  kind  to  his  hopes. 
The  French  revolution,  the  pretended  object  of 
which,  like  the  pretended  object  of  all  revolu 
tions,  was  at  first  mild  and  beneficent  reform, 
was  advancing  with  accelerated  velocity  to  its 
acme  of  spoliation  and  blood.  Paine,  peeping 
out  of  his  lurking  hole  in  the  purlieus  of  Lon 
don,  watched  with  ecstacy  every  advance.  The 
assembly  of  the  Notables  had  been  succeeded  by 
the  States-General,  and  the  States-General,  at 
the  suggestion  of  the  proteus  Syeyes,  without 
any  delegation  by  the  people,  and  therefore  by 
usurpation,  had  declared  itself  the  NATIONAL 


JL1FE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  109 

ASSEMBLY.  The  king  was  taken  captive  by  men, 
who,  vowing  to  each  other  republican  attach 
ments,  were  individually  planning  assassination 
and  pillage  to  encompass  and  wear  his  crown. 
An  unread,  an  unlettered  populace,  just  enough 
oppressed  by  old  masters  to  become  the  willing 
victims  of  greater  oppression  from  new,  were 
artfully  and  mercilessly  freed,  by  those  who  W7ere 
to  be  their  tyrants'and  scourges,  from  those  high 
obligations  which  they  owed  to  themselves,  their 
country,  and  their  God,  and  with  which  they 
could  not  dispense  without  suffering,  as  they 
did,  the  greatest  calamities,  the  most  excruci 
ating  pains.  Overjoyed  at  appearances  in  France, 
Paine,  from  imprisonment  in  London  for  debt, 
passed,  while  those  measures  were  in  train,  to 
Paris  for  commotion. 

"  The  edicts,  he  says,  were  again  tendered 
to  them,  and  the  Count  D'Artois  undertook  to 
act  as  representative  for  the  king.  For  this  pur 
pose,  he  came  from  Versailles  to  Paris,  in  a  train 
of  procession ;  and  the  parliament  were  assem 
bled  to  receive  him.  But  show  and  parade  had 
lost  their  influence  in  France ;  and  whatever 
ideas  of  importance  he  might  set  off  with,  he 
Tiad  to  return  with  those  of  mortification  and 
disappointment.  On  alighting  from  his  carriage 
to  ascend  the  steps  of  the  parliament  house,  the 
crowd  (which  was  numerously  collected)  threw 


110  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

out  trite  expressions,  saying,  "  this  is  monsieur 
D'Artois,  who  wants  more  of  our  money  to 
spend."  The  marked  disapprobation  which  he 
saw,  impressed  him  with  apprehensions  ;  and  the 
word  aux  arms  (to  arms}  \vas  given  out  by  the 
officer  of  the  guard  who  attended  him.  It  wras 
so  loudly  vociferated,  that  it  echoed  through  the 
avenues  of  the  house,  and  produced  a  temporary 
confusion :  I  was  then  standing  in  one  of  the 
apartments  through  which  he  had  to  pass."Qf) 

Having  viewed  with  rapture  the  many  muta 
tions  in  the  affairs  of  France ;  the  sudden  and 
magical  shifting  of  power  from  the  government 
to  the  people ;  from  those  who  had  sometimes 
abused  it  to  those  who  could  not  use  it  well ; 
from  the  few  who  had  now  and  then  oppressed 
to  the  many  who  must  necessarily  and  without 
remission  grind ;  from  those  who  had  unfre- 
quently  devoted  for  days  the  rich  to  the  bastile, 
to  those  who  would  convert  all  France  into  a 
bastile  infinitely  more  gloomy  and  horrid;  having 
whetted  his  keen  appetite  for  subversion  and 
ruin  and  massacre  by  cabals  with  the  grand  con 
structors  of  anarchy  and  desolation  in  France, 
the  incendiary  returned,  to  fire  England. 

The  usurpation  of  the  National  Assembly,  ne- 


(£•)  Rights  of  Miin,  part  1. 


\ 

LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  Ill 

eessary  in  the  process  of  confounding  valuable,  es 
sential,  and  unalterable  distinctions  ;  necessary  in 
the  process  of  tumult  and  carnage;  necessary  in  the 
throes  which  a  great  nation  must  suffer  in  going 
down  from  some  oppression  to  all  anarchy,  and 
from  all  anarchy  to  what  we  now  see  and  feel, 
all  possible  despotism  ;  that  act  of  assumption 
worked  up  all  England,  a  few  men  of  cool  re 
flection,  deep  penetration,  great  experience,  and 
greater  solidity  excepted,  to  a  pitch  of  enthusiasm 
little    short   of    madness.      There   was    indeed 
something  perhaps  awfully  grand,  certainly  hor- 
rour-exciting,    in   the  ruins  of  an  ancient   and 
splendid  government ;  in  the  transfer  of  all  power 
from  those  who  had  excluded   the   people  from 
any  participation  of  it,  to  the  people  themselves, 
who  knew   not  what  to  do  with  it;  who  could 
give   it  no   form,  no  direction,  and  who,  in  a 
tumult  of  joy,  excited  by  being  masters,  without 
knowing  how  to  master  themselves,  could  not 
but   commit  in   a  few  months,  probably  in  so 
many  days,  acts  of    tyranny  and  cruelty  for 
which  an  age  of  well  regulated  freedom  could 
not  adequately  compensate.     Englishmen,  whose  V 
hearts  were  sound,  w7hose  intentions  were  good, 
who  loved  their  country,  who  idolised  its  solid 
and  venerable  freedom,  but  whose  notions,  as 
events  have  proved,    wTere  visionary,    were   in 
raptures  at  the  disenthralment  of  a  neighbouring 


112  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

nation,  from  long  continued  bondage.  If  excess 
of  gratulation,  and,  to  England,  the  danger  of 
excess,  could  have  been  avoided,  there  would 
have  been  in  all  this  a  humanity  of  character,  a 
generosity  of  feeling,  a  nobleness  of  spirit,  which 
future  ages  would  have  admired  and  applauded. 
But  men  of  property,  men  of  sense,  men  of  let 
ters,  men  who  therefore  should  not  have  suffered 
reflection  to  be  overpowered  by  gorgeous  novel 
ties,  by  real  mockeries,  by  changes  which  are 
productive  of  nothing  but  mischief,  forgot  that 
they  were  free,  forgot  that  they  were  English 
men,  and,  bounding  in  exulting  thought  over 
the  precincts  of  their  isle,  became  Frenchmen ; 
not  of  the  Notables,  nor  of  the  States-General, 
nor  of  the  National  Assembly,  nor  of  its  famous 
declaration  of  rights,  for  they  had  more  liberty 
than  the  National  Assembly  could  comprehend, 
or  France  enjoy,  but,  in  the  moments  of  frenzy, 
for  frenzy  it  surely  was,  deposing  Frenchmen ; 
Frenchmen  of  the  national  razor  stamp.(#)  The 
•world  was  to  become  a  republick  of  licentious 
ness  in  fact;  a  fraternity  of  incongruous  and 


(/?)  All  this  T  felt  myself,  out  time,  with  the  reflection  and 
experience  which  time  brings  with  it,  has  settled  me  down 
in  that  substantial  medium  which  cannot  be  overstepped, 
whatever  be  the  pretence,  whatever  the  cause  or  the  object, 
without  violating  every  principle  and  attribute  of  freedom. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  113 

Repelling  atoms  ;  a  brotherhood  of  absurd  prin 
ciples  and  irredueible  rules.  This  was  the  phi 
losophy  ;  this  the  charm  ;  as  if  all  nature,  at  the 
command  of  presumptuous  and  impious  French 
men,  would  at  once  give  way ;  as  if,  to  use  the 
language  of  Fielding's  Square,  the  eternal  fitness 
of  things  could  be  unfitted,  recreated,  and  new 
modelled.  Parisian  jacobin  clubs  were  imitated 
in  London.  Fraternal  hugs  were  interchanged 
by  jacobin  plenipotentiaries.  Revolution  dinners 
were  had  all  over  England,  and  revolutionary 
toasts  drank.  Even  Dr.  Price  gave  for  his  toast 
at  one  of  these  jubilees  of  preparatory  commo 
tion,  "  the  parliament  of  England ;  may  it  be 
come  a  National  Assembly  /"  Could  his  meaning 
be  mistaken  ?  The  National  Assembly  of  France 
had  declared  for  a  limited  monarchy,  which 
England  had.  It  had  Established,  or  rather  it 
had  prescribed  upon  paper,  trial  by  jury.  Was 
England  without  this  palladium  of  safety  ?  All 
the  paper  immunities  which  the  National  Assem 
bly  had  allowed  in  its  declaration  of  rights, 
which  were  never  reduced  to  practice,  fell  vastly 
short  of  the  excellence  of  British  enjoyment. 
But  France  was  only  in  the  adolescence  of  her 
work.  From  limited  monarchy  she  was  verging 
to  unlimited  devastation.  She  was  to  be  a  spick- 
and-span  new  nation.  All  old  things  were  to  be 
done  away.  England  too  was  to  be  new-born; 

p 


114  LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINS. 

The  world  a  republick  or  a  desart  was  one  of 
the  humane  dogmas.  Hunted,  pillaged,  and 
blood-sucked,  a  desert  it  might  be,  but  a  repub 
lick,  and  least  of  all  a  republick  like  that  to 
which  France  was  hastening,  it  could  not  be. 

A  tempest  so  tremendous  as  that  of  France, 
in  which  all  has  been  wrecked,  directing  its 
dreadful  course  towards  England,  where,  as  if 
lost  to  all  the  means  of  safety,  the  people  invited 
its  approach,  rendered  it  necessary  for  some 
Nelson  to  clear  the  national  ship,  and  prepare  it 
triumphantly  to  resist  the  pitiless  peltings  of  the 
•/  pitiless  storm.  BURKE,  whose  enlightened  patriot 
ism  had  been  grateful  to  America,  and  whose 
oratory  in  the  British  senate  had  delighted  Eu 
rope,  came  forth  from  the  tranquil  scenes  of 
closing  life  to  avert  the  whelming  danger.  His 
"  Reflections,"  uniting  to  profoundest  sagacity 
unrivalled  eloquence,  have  drawn  from  the 
world  an  undivided  tribute  of  reluctant  pane- 
gyrick.  Who  now  can  question  its  prophetick 
truths  ?  All  the  enormities  which,  from  the  na 
ture  of  the  French  revolution,  he  sagaciously 
predicted  and  admirably  described,  have  been 
committed  by  the  French  people.  Its  never* 
ending  fluctuations  but  in  a  despotism  infinitely 
more  terrible  than  that  which  the  united  labours 
of  the  National  Assembly  and  Convention  over 
drew,  he  foretold  and  delineated  with  wonderful 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS  PAINE.  115 

precision  and  force.  Who,  now  that  the  events 
have  happened  which  he  prognosticated,  can  call 
his  deep  insight  into  human  nature,  rhapsody ; 
his  predictions,  which  have  all  been  verified,  the 
chimeras  of  a  rhetorician's  brain  ?  He  saw 
cause  and  effect  and  their  connexion,  and  the 
great  energy  of  his  great  mind,  roused  by  the 
horrour  which  perfect  vision  had  excited,  was 
exerted  to  save  Iris  country.  The  safety  of 
England,  which  is  in  truth  the  safety  of  the 
world,  was  his  primary  object.  He  was  sure 
that  neither  the  French  revolution  nor  its  delete 
rious  effects  could  be  kept  within  the  limits  of 
France.  French  audacity  had  already  embold 
ened  British  presumption.  From  the  subversion 
of  the  one  government,  transitions  had  been 
made  to  that  of  the  other.  Dr.  Price  had  propa 
gated  from  the  pulpit  the  right  of  the  nation  to 
"  cashier"  the  king  for  misconduct.  That  it  has 
the  right  is  indubitable,  and  that  it  has  more 
than  once  practically  asserted  it,  is  certain.  But 
as  the  nation  was  well  acquainted  with  its  right 
of  cashiering  for  a  deliberate,  systematick,  con 
tinued,  and  undoubted  effort  to  destroy  its  free 
dom  ;  and  as  cashiering  was  the  daily  right  and 
practice  of  France,  with  whom  he  was  fra 
ternizing,  could  it  be  that  no  more  was  intended 
by  the  doctor,  amiable  as  it  is  said  he  was,  than 
to  remind  the  people  of  what  they  well  knew, 


116  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE, 

and  of  which  they  had  not  lost  the  recollection  ? 
The  clubs  and  the  nation,  judging  from  the 
noise  that  was  made,  supported  the  drum  eccle- 
siastick.  Cashiering  was  in  the  mouths  of  men 
who  had  been  taught  nothing  but  that  it  meant 
violence,  a  deposing  of  the  king,  an  extinction 
of  the  house  of  peers,  a  destruction  of  the  whole 
government.  Little  was  heard  but  cashiering, 
Nor  was  encouragement  withheld  from  France, 
The  English  spirit  of  English  reform  was  to  be 
quickened  by  French  revolutionists. 

BURKE'S  Reflections  were  published  early  in  the 
year  1 790.  Paine,  who  had  been  a  Parisian  spec 
tator  of  Parisian  scenes,  went  over  from  France  to 
England  in  order  to  hasten  the  business  of  re- 
^  form.  In  March,  1 79 1 ,  he  published  "  TheRights 
of  Man,  part  first,"  in  answer,  as  he  thought  fit 
to  style  it,  to  Burke's  Reflections.  This  misera- 

x  ble  production  was,  from  similarity  of  causes, 
as  popular  in  England  as  his  Common  Sense  had 

i/1  been  in  America.  France  was  in  confusion ; 
England  was  getting  into  confusion ;  rebellion 
was  the  order  of  the  day.  With  Dr.  Price  and 

^  the  clubs,  Paine  was  for  cashiering.  He  went, 
however,  in  language,  a  little  further  than  they 
did.  What  he  wanted  of  the  elegance  of  the 
English  reformers,  he  made  up  in  impudent  and 
vulgar  boldness.  In  terms  at  once  bland  and 
fascinating,  they  contended  for  the  abstract  right 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  117 

of  cashiering ;  Paine,  coarsely  and  bluntly,  not 
only  for  the  right  but  for  the  necessity  of  imme 
diate  action.  They  did  not,  however,  essentially 
differ,  if  at  all,  either  in  spirit  or  in  object.  The 
clubs  patronized  his  work,  and  widely  extended 
its  circulation.  Did  this  look  like  disapproba 
tion  ? 

Having  experienced  an  unprecedented  sale  of  ^ 
his  pamphlet ;(/)  having  perceived  the  anarchial 
spirit  that  was  up ;  being  sure  that  the  govern 
ment  would  be  overthrown,  broken  into  frag 
ments,  wholly  demolished,  and  that,  as  in  France, 
the  wholesome  doctrine  of  reform  would  be 
superceded  by  the  bloody  work  of  revolution,  he 
returned,  in  the  following  May,  to  Paris,  where 
violence  was  increasing  in  degree  and  swiftness 
far  exceeding  the  calculations,  but  not  the  hopes, 
of  the  most  expert  and  sanguinary  citizen  of  the 
terrible  repiiUiclc, 

That  he  was  well  received  at  the  seat  of  uni 
versal  havock,  will  not  be  doubted.     His  British    u 
fame  ;    the   popular  celebrity  of  his  despicable 
work,  had  preceded  him,  and  rendered  a  parti- 


(z)  "  Between  forty  and  fifty  thousand  copies  were  so/c?." 
Rights  of  Man,  part  second.  Probably  more  than  a  hundred 
thousand  copies  were  published.  This  is  a  much  greater 
number  than  was  published  of  his  Common  Sense. 


1 1 8  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

/  cular  report  to  his  co-plotters  unnecessary.  The 
fraternizing  spirit  in  ruin  which  pervaded  Eng 
land,  of  whose  existence  he  could  give  irrefraga 
ble  assurances,  must  have  delighted  those  artifi 
cers  of  the  greatest  human  misery  that  human 
means  ever  inflicted. 

Soon  after  his  arrival,  the  king  fled  from  Paris. 
On  his  return,  Paine  was  in  some  danger  of  be 
coming  the  victim  of  a  sedition  which  he  had 
disseminated  in  London,  and  of  which  he  was  a 
friend  in  France.  On  the  appearance  of  the 
king,  "  an  officer  proclaimed  the  will  of  the  Na 
tional  Assembly,  that  all  should  be  silent  and 

i  covered  :  in  a  minute  all  hats  were  on.  Paine 
had  lost  his  cockade,  the  emblem  of  liberty  and 
equality.  A  cry  arose ;  aristocrat  !  aristocrat ! 
aristocrat !  a  la  lanterne  !  a  la  lanterne  !  He 
was  desired  by  those  who  stood  near  him  to  put 
on  his  hat,  and  it  was  not  till  after  some  time 
that  the  mob  was  satisfied  by  explanation."(y) 

The  mob,  elevated  to  liberty  and  equality, 
going  a  la  lanterne  with  one  of  the  most  distin 
guished  champions  of  disorder,  would  have  been 
a  scene  curious  enough  ;  but  he  was  unknown  to 
them.  Poor  abused  wretches  they  were  unac 
quainted  with  his  mission  to  England,  and  with 


(}}   Impartial  Sketch. 


LIFE    OF  THOMAS    PAINE.  lit 

what  he  had  done  for  their  cause,  or  they  would 
not  have  threatened  to  hang  him  at  a  lamp  post 
for  neglecting  to  put  into  his  hat  the  emblem  of 
liberty  and  equality !  He  is  dead.  It  may  be 
well  that  the  bloodhounds,  whom  he  had  assisted 
in  letting  loose  upon  shrieking  innocence,  did  not 
add  to  their  crimes  by  tearing  him  to  pieces. 

The  abbe  Syeyes  now  perceived,  and  this  is 
the  fatal  errour  of  many  sensible  men,  that  he  had 
gone  too  far,  but  he  saw  it  only  when  he  could 
not  impede  the  onward  course  of  the  tumult  and 
desolation  to  whose  motion  he  had  greatly  con 
tributed.  He  now  began  to  apprehend  that  the 
kingly  office,  as  well  as  the  king,  was  in  dan 
ger  ;  he  was  sure  that  France  was  unfit  for  a 
republick,  and  that  the  destruction  of  the  mon 
archy  and  the  monarch  would  be  followed,  as  it 
was,  by  the  destruction  of  civil  and  social  order. 
When  the  disease  was  beyond  the  power  of  the 
physician,  he  publickly  challenged  all  writers  in 
defence  of  the  monarchial  against  the  republican 
system.  "  If  it  be  asked,  he  said,  what  is  my 
opinion  writh  respect  to  hereditary  right,  I  an 
swer,  without  hesitation,  that,  in  good  theory, 
an  hereditary  transmission  of  any  power  or  office, 
can  never  accord  with  the  laws  of  a  true  repre 
sentation.  Hereditaryship  is,  in  this  sense,  as 
much  an  attaint  upon  principle  as  an  outrage 
upon  society  :  But,  refer  to  the  histories  of  all 


120  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

elective  monarchies  and  principalities :  is  there* 
one  in  which  the  elective  mode  is  not  worse  than 
the  hereditary  succession  ?" 

Paine,  elate  with  the  rare  work  which  was 
going  on  in  France,  as  well  as  with  his  British 
success,  accepted  the  challenge.  His  publick 
letter  of  acceptance  is  dated  Paris,  July  8,  1791, 
the  moment  of  his  departure  for  England. 
France  was  now  in  a  condition  to  complete  her 
own  ruin  without  his  pad.  His  post  wras  Eng 
land,  where  the  work  of  subversion,  dismay, 
and  horrour  was  to  be  prosecuted. 

On  the  1 3th  of  the  same  month,  he  arrived  in- 
London,  where  the  French  revolution  was  to  be 
celebrated  by  party  feasting  and  toasts,  prepared 
by  party  arts.  He  was  not,  however,  one  of  the 
dinner  celebrators.  It  was  "  not  thought  pru 
dent 'that  he  should  attend."  (&) 

But  he  attended  a  meeting  of  the  reformists  at 
the  Thatched  House  Tavern  on  the  20th  of  the 
following  August,  where  an  inflammatory  ad 
dress  and  declaration  were  read  and  afterwards 
published.  Home  Tooke,  perhaps  the  most 
acute  man  of  the  age,  was  at  the  meeting ;  and 
as  it  was  rumoured,  Paine  observes, (/)  that  the 
great  grammarian  was  the  author  of  the  ad- 


}  Rights  of  Man,  part  Z>         (/)'  Iligl.ts  of  Man,  part  2, 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  121 

dress,  he  takes  the  liberty  of  mentioning  the  fact, 
that  he  wrote  it  himself.  I  never  heard  of  the 
rumour,  which  was  doubtless  a  fiction  formed  and 
asserted  by  Paine,  merely  to  gratify  his  egotism. 
No  ona  could  mistake  the  uncouth  and  ungram- 
matical  writings  of  the  one  for  the  correct  and 
elegant  productions  of  the  other. 

"  On  the  4th  of  November  he  assisted,  on  the 
eve  of  the  gunpowdei\plot,  at  the  customary  ce 
lebration  of  the  oth,  by  the  revolution  society. 
He  was  thanked  for  his  Rights  of  Man,  and  gave 
for  his  toast — The  revolution  of  the  world  l"(m) 

In  February,  1792,  he  published  the  second 
part  of  his  Rights  of  Man.  Part  first,  is  full  of 
sedition  ;  part  second  openly  and  fearlessly  calls 
on  the  people  to  revolt,  and  unequivocally  ad 
vocates  a  subversion  of  the  government. 

Never  before  had  the  freedom,  the  protection, 
and  the  hospitality  of  the  nation,  or  of  any  other 
nation,  been  so  daringly  and  outrageously  abused. 
Whatever  irregularities  or  oppressions  Mr.  Pitt 
may  afterwards  have  committed,  occasioned  and 
probably  rendered  indispensable  by  the  irregu 
larities  and  the  oppressions  of  the  times,  surely 
he  was  patient  and  forbearing  with  Paine  to  a 
fault.  Paine  was  an  alien.  He  was  indeed  an 


(w)  Oldys, 


122  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

Englishman  by  birth,  but  the  obligations  of  birth 
had  been  dispensed  with  by  the  one  party,  and 
alienated  by  the  other,  in  the  treaty  of  peace  of 
1783.  What  government,  besides  that  of  Eng 
land,  would  have  suffered  an  alien  to  beard  it — 
to  set  it  at  defiance — to  pronounce  it  an  usurpa 
tion  in  principle  and  corrupt  in  practice — to 
propose  its  overthrow  in  language  that  nobody 
could  mistake — to  invite  the  people  to  revolution 
and  blood  ?  Would  not  the  government  of  the 
United  States  energetically  exert  its  power  to 
punish  offences,  committed  even  by  a  citizen,  so 
intrinsically  traitorous  ?  Would  the  people  al- 
low  an  alien  thus  to  interfere  in  their  affairs  ?  I 
know  that  the  government  would  promptly  and 
vigourously  punish ;  it  ought  to  do  so.  I  know 
that  the  people,  were  they  to  relish  a  dismember 
ment  of  the  union,  a  destruction  of  the  national 
government,  if  suggested  and  enforced  by  a 
jmtive  citizen,  would  rise  indignantly  against 
both,  if  proposed  and  urged  by  an  alien.  On 
the  subject  of  alienism,  there  is  no  nation  so 
tender  as  the  American.  Is  a  man  an  alien? 
Does  he  meddle  with  politicks  ?  If  so,  he  is 
told,  and  with  few  exceptions  he  is  universally 
told,  that,  being  an  alien,  he  has  no  right  to 
speak,  much  less  to  write,  on  our  political  con 
cerns.  Native  opposition  to  alien  meddling  ex 
tends  much  further.  Emigrants,  settled  with 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  123 

their  families  and  fortunes  for  ever,  and  natural* 
ized  by  all  the  forms  of  law,  are  always  con 
sidered,  and  by  all  parties  treated,  as  foreign- 
ers.(n) 

But  there  is  in  England  much  more  liberality. 
Keeping  within  constitutional  bounds — and  who 
ought  to  transcend  them  ? — he  might  have  writ 
ten  as  much  and  as  long  as  he  pleased,  unre- 
proached  with  being»a  foreigner.  There  is,  how 
ever,  in  extreme  cases  a  material  difference  be 
tween  an  alien  who  has  no  claim  to  protection 
but  that  which  the  common  hospitalities  of  all 
nations  give,  and  a  subject  or  citizen  who  of 


(ri)  On  the  subject  of  foreigners,  Paine,  in  the  first  part  of 
his  Rights  of  Man,  sought  to  deceive  the  English  people  by 
representations   which  he  knew  to  be  false.     "  France  and  7 
America  bid  all  comers  welcome,  and  initiate   them  into  all   . 
the  rights  of  citizenship."    Two  years   after  this,  unceremo-    ; 
nious  assertion,  France  imprisoned  him  because  he  was  born    . 
in  England!     As  to  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  United,.^ 
States,  they  do  indeed  bid  all  comers  welcome,  and  initiate 
them,  by  naturalization,  after  five  or  ten  years  residence, (*) 


(*)  The  first  naturalization  act  under  the  federal  govern- 
in  ent  required  a  previous  residence  of  two  years.  The  se 
cond,  that  of  T798,  passed  by  the  federal  party,  then  in 
power,  who  found  that  naturalizing  operated  against  them, 
required  fourteen.  The  third  and  last  and  present  act,  passed 
by  the  rejiublican  party  in  the  year  1801,  who  had  just  got 
into  power,  wanted  strength,  and  knew  that  eight-tenths 
of  the  persons  naturalized  arrange  themselves  with  the  re 
publican  party,  and  generally  vote  for  their  masters,  requires 
Jive  years  previous  residence,  but  it  is  so  clogged  with  forms, 


124  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

right  owes  allegiance  and  enjoys  protection.  But 
in  either,  inflammatory  invitations  to  rebellion 
are,  especially  in  periods  of  great  agitation,  an 
offence,  and  the  offence  is  aggravated  if  com 
mitted  by  an  alien  who  has  no  interest  either  in 
the  peace  or  in  the  integrity  of  the  state  in  which 
he  sojourns.  Whatever,  therefore,  party  and 
passion,  prejudice  and  malignity,  ignorance  and 
injustice  may  roundly  assert,  Paine  experienced 
from  the  British  government  a  mildness,  a  for 
bearance,  which  no  man,  urging  amongst  us  in 
the  boldest  language  of  sedition  a  dissolution  of 
the  union,  a  destruction  of  the  national  govern- 


into  all  the  rights  of  native  citizenship,  but  one  or  two.  But 
what  are  constitutions  and  laws  when  almost  universally  op 
posed  by  obstinate  opinion,  unconquerable  prejudices,  and 
cherished  habits  ?  Birth  in  the  United  States  would  have 
covered  all  Paine's  faults  in  his  controversy  with  Deane. 
LEE'S  military  genius  was  repressed,  even  during  the  revo 
lutionary  war,  because  it  was  not  native.  Montgomery's 
death  befqre  Quebec  is  mentioned  only  at  elections,  and  then 
but  to  operate  on  the  generous  feelings  of  Irishmen  in  favour 


such  as  giving  two  years  notice  of  intention  to  become  citi 
zens,  that  the  average  time  of  probation  may  be  said  to  be 
eight  years.  Indeed  the  time  of  greatest  probation,  if  that 
mean  punishment,  is  after  naturalization,  for  the  only  right 
allowed  the  naturalized,  is  that  of  voting  for  a  native.  Natu 
ralized  citizens  are  to  the  Americans  what  the  Helots  were 
to  the  Grecians.  There  can  be  no  greater  slavery — no 
greater  punishment  for  human  pride  and  presumption ;  I 
might  add,  for  disaffection  in  one's  native  land. 


UFK   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  125 

ment,  and  a  consequent  civil  war,  could  expect 
from  the  government  of  the  United  States.  The 
first  part  of  his  Rights  of  Man,  not  a  jot  less 
intemperate  and  rebellious  than  the  second,  was 
published  not  only  with  impunity,  but  without 
notice  from  the  government.  I  do  not  mention 
the  fact  in  commendation.  Paine  ought  to  have 
been  punished.  Alarm,  if  the  government  was 
alarmed,  is  a  poor  apology.  When  did  fear 
beget  respect  ?  When  did  imbecility  avert 
danger  ? 

Parliament  had  been  frequently  petitioned  for 
a  reform  in  the  representation  of  the  house  of 


of  the  republican  party.  Gates's  conquest  of  Burgoyne  was 
envied,  and  is  now  rarely  mentioned,  because  he  was  an  En 
glishman.  General  Hamilton,  who  was  born  in  one  of  the 
English  West-India  islands,  came  to  the  colonies  when  a 
lad — entered  into  the  revolutionary  war  with  zeal — became, 
early  in  the  war,  one  of  the  aids  of  Washington — gallantly 
commanded  a  regiment  at  the  capture  of  Cornwallis — fought 
through  the  revolution — was  a  member  of  the  Convention  from 
which  our  national  constitution  originated — was  the  first  secre 
tary  of  the  treasury,  or  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  under 
the  national  government — he  formed  the  department  and 
brought  order  out  of  chaos — he  was  perhaps  the  ablest  writer 
and  most  eloquent  man  in  America;  even  HAMILTON,  one 
of  the  most  ingenuous  and  disinterested  of  mankind,  was  called, 
considered,  and  treated  as  a  foreigner  !  His  early  distinc 
tions  are  to  be  ascribed  to  the  circumstances  of  the  times  ; 
to  a  poverty  of  talents.  The  late  president  Adams,  wh» 
is  now  in  newspaper  essays  defending  or  explaining  his  ad 
ministration,  says,  that  being  a  foreigner^  it  could  not  be 


126  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE* 

commons,  and  the  petitions  had  been  amply  and 
ably  discussed  by  the  orators  of  both  parties. 
These  petitions  were,  however,  uniformly  and 
necessarily  unsuccessful.  I  say  necessarily,  for 
the  ministers  and  their  friends  knowing,  as  I 
hope,  that  one  innovation  would,  by  an  unavoid 
able  succession  of  innovations,  lead  to  a  dissolu 
tion  of  the  government,  opposed  it,  and  the  chiefs 
of  the  petitioning  party  did  not  agree  as  to  the 
nature  and  extent  of  reform.  Fox,  the  Demost 
henes  of  the  Whigs,  was  vehemently  adverse, 
and  in  this  he  was  wise,  to  universal  suffrage. 
Grey,  Sheridan,  Erskine,  and  the  rest,  with  per- 


supposed  that  Hamilton  could  have  American  feelings,  or 
be  well  informed  on  American  affairs  !  And  yet  he  was  a 
youth  when  he  came.  All  that  he  knew,  and  he  knew 
as  much  as  man  well  can  know,  he  learnt  during  his  resi 
dence  amongst  us,  which  was  from  the  first  day  of  his  land 
ing  in  the  colonies.  Mr.  Gallatin,  the  present  secretary  of 
the  treasury,  born  in  Geneva,  a  gentleman  but  little  if  at  all 
inferiour  to  Hamilton  in  capacity  and  acquirements,  is,  like 
all  the  rest,  stigmatized  as  a  foreigner  by  all  parties.  He 
was  appointed  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  who,  great  as  his  other  faults 
are,  is,  I  believe,  but  undoubtedly  in  a  great  measure,  exempt 
from  this  prejudice.  Mr.  Madison,  on  his  accession  to  the 
presidency,  fixed  on  Mr.  Gallatin  for  his  secretary  of  state, 
but  he  was  driven  from  an  intended  nomination  of  him  to  th« 
senate  by  his  own  party  in  that  body,  who  threatened,  at  all 
hazards,  to  negative  it  if  made,  because  he  was  a  FOREIGNER. 
In  this  instance  the  new  president  was  overawed  by  his  party 
in  the  senate.  He  was  obliged  to  nominate  Mr.  Robert  Smith, 
a  native  ;  a  gentleman,  indeed,  in  manners,  but,  as  may  tye 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  127 

haps  one  or  two  exceptions,  coincided  \vith  him. 
Their  notions  of  a  reform,  for  they  had  none  of 
an  element  that  is  naturally  and  necessarily  al 
ways  tumultuous,  were  judiciously  limited.  But 
Paine  was  against  all  petitioning.  He  considered 
petitioning  as  a  sort  of  playful  skirmishing  very 
unlike  that  bloody  battle  which  he  wished  to  see 
fought,  and  to  which  he  was  endeavouring  to 
inspirit  the  people  of  England.  "  I  confess  I  have 
no  idea  of  petitioning  for  rights.  Whatever  the 
rights  of  the  people  are,  they  have  a  right  to 


seen  in  his  diplomatick  correspondence,  with  talents  fitting 
him  only  for  a  counting  house  clerk.  The  senate  readily  and 
unanimously  consented  to  his  appointment.  Against  foreigners 
by  birth  and  citizens  by  adoption,  universal  prejudice  has 
formed  an  universal  conspiracy.  The  subjoined  address, 
written  by  me  at  the  suggestion  of  some  of  the  gentlemen  of 
the  meeting  by  which  it  was  adopted  and  published,  will 
more  fully  explain  this  subject.  Its  great  length  may  be 
excused  by  what  may  be  considered  its  importance  in  illus 
trating  our  national  opinions,  national  prejudices,  national 
manners,  and  party  management. 

At  a  respectable  meeting,  consisting  of  about  five  hundred 
Adopted  Republican  Citizens  of  the  City  of  New-York, 
held  at  Lyon's  Hotel,  Mott-street,  on  Friday  Evening,  April 
14,  1809. 

Mr.  Archibald  Taylor  being  unanimously  called  to  the  chair, 
and  Dr.  Stephen  Demfiscy  appointed  Secretary. 

The  subjoined  address  was     unanimously  adopted,    and  or 
dered  to  be  published. 

To  the  Adopted  Republican  Citizens  of  the  City  New-York. 

FELLOW  CITIZENS, 
A  long  train  of  disagreeable  circumstances  have  called  u* 

together,  and  induced  us  to  address  you  upon  a  subject,  which* 


128  LIFE  OF   THOMAS  FAIN!. 

them,  and  none  have  a  right  either  to  withhold 
them  or  to  grant  them."(o) 

If  he  would  not  petition,  what  would  he  do  ? 
Why,  revolt — take  up  arms — plunge  the  nation 
into  civil  war — batter  down  the  government  with 
cannon. 

But  apart  from  the  criminality  of  the  inten 
tion,  what  shall  we  say  of  his  reasoning  ? 
That,  as  is  usual  with  him,  it  is  very  despi 
cable.  "What  say  you,  citizens  of  the  Unit 
ed  States  ?  If  you  are  wronged,  if  you  are  ag 
grieved,  if  you  but  imagine  either,  do  you  not 
petition  congress  ;  do  you  not  petition  your  state 


for  years,  we  have  acutely  felt  and  deeply  deplored.  Some 
of  you,  groaning  under  oppression  in  your  native  land,  hare 
voluntarily  emigrated  from  it,  whilst  others,  more  afflicted 
by  despotism  and  less  favoured  by  propitious  events,  find  your 
selves  in  the  condition  of  involuntary  exile.  All,  however, 
have  chosen  as  a  resting  place  in  the  journey  through  life, 
this  "  asylum  for  the  oppressed  of  all  nations."  Here,  per 
haps  mistaking  the  character  of  human  nature,  we  pleasingly- 
anticipated,  from  those  who  avow  themselves  the  friends  of 
freedom,  exemption  from  that  religious  persecution  and  civil 
tyranny,  whose  inexorable  reign  had  forced  us  from  our  na 
tive  country.  Alas  !  how  greatly  were  we  mistaken !  how 
egregionsly  have  we  been  disappointed  !  Our  constitutions  and 
governments  are  indeed  free,  but  between  these  admirable 
institutions  and  ourselves  a  tyranny  is  intervened,  much  less 
tolerable  than  that  from  which  we  fled.  We  are  denominated 
FOREIGNERS  and  treated  as  SLAVES. 


(o)  Rights  of  Man,  part  2, 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  129 

legislatures  ?  Is  it  not  your  right  and  your  duty  to 
do  so  ?  Would  you  disdain  to  petition  ?  Would 
you,  without  petitioning,  without  laying  your  griev 
ances  before  your  legislatures,  rashly  and  ruin 
ously  fly  to  arms  ?  A  maxim  like  Paine 's,  as 
foolish  as  it  is  wicked,  must  be  abhorred.  A 
doctrine  like  his — rebel  against  all  law — is  not 
nor  can  it  be  tolerated  by  any  government  or 
people.  If  it  should  be  said  in  his  behalf  that 
parliament  had  often  been  petitioned  in  vain,  and 
that  petitioning  had,  therefore,  become  useless  ; 
then  we  perceive  the  mischievous  design ;  then 
we  perceive  the  motive,  and  nothing  is  necessary 


On  this  odious  subject,  we  beseech  you,  fellow  citizens,  to 
listen  to  us. 

The  land  in  which  we  live,  discovered  by  an  illustrious 
Spaniard,  was  settled  by  our  free,  enterprising,  and  hardy 
countrymen.  Oppression  in  church  and  state,  to  which  they 
were  too  proud  and  enlightened  to  submit,  forced  them,  as  it 
has  compelled  you,  to  leave  their  native  homes,  and  to  seek, 
in  the  wilds  of  America,  freedom  and  repose.  Here,  where 
the  panther,  and  man  not  less  ferocious  than  the  panther, 
held  dominion,  they  settled,  resting  their  weary  limbs  and  pi 
ously  thanking  God  for  their  deliverance  from  the  intolerance 
of  the  church  and  the  despotism  of  the  state ;  here,  our  no 
ble  and  high  minded  ancestors  introducing  our  principles,  our 
language,  our  laws,  and  our  habits,  laid  the  foundation  of  this 
vast  empire;  for  themselves,  for  their  descendants^  and  for  their 
countrymen.  This  therefore  is  truly,  and  we  may  emphati 
cally  assert,  the  land  of  our  fathers.  Why  then  are  we  per 
secuted  ?  Why  are  invidious  distinctions  malignantly  dissenai- 

R 


130  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

or  should  follow  but  swift  and  exemplary  punish 
ment. 

That  his  meaning  might  not  be  misunderstood, 
and  I  see  not  how  it  could  be,  he  illustrates  it, 
in  another  place,  by  example.  "  Much  is  to  be 
learned  from  the  French  constitution.  Conquest 
and  tyranny  transplanted  themselves  with  Wil 
liam  the  conqueror  from  Normandy  into  Eng 
land,  and  the  country  is  yet  disfigured  with  the 
marks.  May  the  example  of  all  France  contri 
bute  to  regenerate  the  freedom  which  a  province 
of  it  destroyed."O) 

What  was  the  example  of  France  ?     Revolu- 


natcd   and  industriously  maintained  ?    Why  are  we  branded 
with  the  offensive  epithet  of  FOREIGNERS? 

Fellow  Citizens,  we  are  thirty-three  years  old  as  a  nation. 
The  moment  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
promulgated  by  congress  and  confirmed  by  the  Provincial 
Legislatures,  every  man  in  the  colonies  was  a  subject  of  the 
King  of  England.  Then,  the  Irish,  the  English,  the  Scotch, 
and  the  native  descendants  of  our  countrymen,  owed  the  same 
allegiance  and  received  the  same  protection.  All,  with  few 
exceptions,  revolted,  and  of  those  exceptions  the  native  de 
scendants  of  our  ancestors  were  the  most  numerous.  In  the 
memorable  war  for  independence,  (freedom  was  afterwards 
to  be  established  and  maintained)  the  Europeans,  who  con 
stituted  a  full  moiety  of  our  efficient  force,  were  distinguished 
for  fidelity  to  the  country,  zeal  in  its  cause,  wisdom  in  its 
councils,  and  intrepidity  in  the  field.  Upon  the  illustrious 

(/O  Rights  of  Man,  part  I. 


UFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  18  1 

tion :  a  la  lanterne  I  What  was  her  constitu 
tion,  from  which  much  may  be  learned  ?  A 
paper  of  absurdities  ;  an  instrument  that  lasted 
nearly  a  year  ;  a  charter,  unlike  Magna  Charta, 
of  which  we  have  wisely  taken  much  into  our 
federal  constitution  ;  an  unsubstantial  production 
of  men  trivial  in  good,  but  potent  in  mischief. 

Still  the  government  moved  not.  Even  this 
avowal  of  his  revolutionary  mission  from  France, 
neither  awakened  its  vigilance  nor  brought  into 
action  its  self-preserving  powers.  Encouraged 
by  lenity,  he  proceeded. 

"  The  bill  which  the  present  Mr.  Pitt  brought 


names  of  Montgomery,  of  Gates,  and  of  Mercer,  we  refleet 
with  proud  satisfaction.  Irishmen!  the  gallant  MONTGOME 
RY,  who  nobly  fell  in  defence  of  our  independence,  drew  his 
first  breath  in  the  land,  exuberant  in  poets  and  in  orators, 
whose  green  fields  have  for  ages  been  drenched  in  the  blood 
ef  her  children,  for  having  made  generous  efforts  to  obtain 
national  independence  and  republican  freedom.  Englishmen! 
that  accomplished  soldier,  GATES,  the  conqueror  of  Burgoyne, 
the  atchiever  of  a  military  event  most  splendid  in  our  history, 
and  upon  which  in  a  great  measure  the  success  of  the  revolu 
tion  depended,  was  born  in  that  island  which  gave  birth  to 
Shakspeare  and  to  Milton,  to  Newton  and  to  Locke,  to  Sydney 
and  to  Russel;  to  many  sages  and  martyrs  of  freedom,  and 
from  which  all  our  correct  notions  of  civil  liberty  are  drawn. 
Scotchmen  !  descendants  of  a  learned  and  gallant  ancestry, 
MERCER,  who  bravely  sealed  with  his  blood  the  independence  of 
the  United  States,  was  the  countryman  of  Bruce  and  Wallace, 
of  Home  and  Burns,  of  Hume  and  Robertson.  All,  at  the 
brilliant  period  of  our  history  to  which  we  refer,  were  undistin- 


132  ESFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

into  parliament  some  years  ago  to  reform  parlia 
ment,  was  on  the  same  erroneous  principles. 
The  right  of  reform  is  in  the  nation  in  its  ori 
ginal  character,  and  the  constitutional  method 
would  be  by  general  convention  elected  for  the 
purpose.  A  government  on  the  principles  in 
which  constitutional  governments,  arising  out  of 
society,  are  established,  cannot  have  the  right  of 
altering  itself.  "(#) 

This  is  one  of  the  best  of  his  uniformly  bad 
arguments.  There  never  was  in  any  nation, 
nor  can  there  be,  a  right  like  that  for  which 


guished  but  by  merit.  All,  in  case  of  failure  in  our  revolution 
ary  struggles,  had  committed  the  same  offence,  and  incurred 
the  same  punishment,  for  all  were  subjects  of  the  same  mon 
arch.  Then,  animated  with  a  noble  ardour  in  a  glorious  cause, 
and  united  by  common  danger  and  common  advantages,  envi 
ous  distinctions  between  citizens  of  native  and  foreign  birth, 
the  effect  of  ignorance  or  the  dictate  of  personal  agrandize- 
ment,  were  unknown.  Fayette  was  eulogised — Hamilton 
caressed — Pulaski  lamented,  and  Steuben  revered.  Congress, 
following  the  sage  example  of  Peter  the  Great;  cherishing  a 
liberal  and  enlightened  policy  ;  knowing  that  national  popula 
tion  is  national  strength,  and  that  literature  and  the  sciences 


(g)  Rights  of  Man,  part  2.  It  was  probably  this  passage 
that  suggested  the  British  Convention,  which  sat  in  Scotland 
the  following  year,  of  which  Gerald  and  Margaret  were 
members.  The  convention  was  a  self-created  and  unauthor 
ised  body,  organized  to  overawe  parliament  and  accelerate 
revolution. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINK.  138 

he  contends,  and  which  he  considers  as  funda 
mental  and  unalienable. 

Amongst  a  people  without  government,  (if 
there  ever  were  such  a  people)  and  over  whom 
government  is  to  be,  a  convention,  arisitig  out  of 
society  (if  such  a  people  can  be  called  society) 
would  be  a  prerequisite  to  just  government. 
But  where  government  is  established,  there  never 
was,  I  apprehend, 'a  distinct  convention  consti 
tuted  for  the  sole  purpose  of  correcting  its  abuses : 
the  solecism  has  been,  as  yet,  too  great  for  the 
world,  and  I  am  pretty  certain  that  it  will  con 
tinue  to  be  so.  Such  a  convention  would  be  a 


constitute  the  solid  foundations  of  national  greatness,  invited 
and  encouraged  emigration.  In  one  of  the  many  express^re 
and  eloquent  appeals  to  reason  and  to  the  passions  which  were 
issued  to  an  admiring  world  by  that  sagacious  and  illustrious 
body,  more  than  native  immunities  were  held  forth,  as  incen 
tives  to  emigrants.  Is  the  endearing  address  of  congress  to 
the  people  of  Ireland  forgotten  ?  Has  faction  absorbed — has 
clamour  banished  revolutionary  opinions,  and  violence  stunned 
revolutionary  feelings  ?  Are  we  a  degenerate  race,  unworthy 
of  the  renown,  incapable  of  appreciating,  and  unable  justly 
to  estimate  the  virtues  of  those  times  ?  In  that  address,  the 
people  of  Ireland  were  saluted  as  brethren  of  the  same  prin 
ciples — victims  of  the  same  oppression — involved  in  the  same 
ignominy,  and  co-inheritors  of  the  same  benefits,  with  which 
the  efforts  of  congress  might  or  might  not  be  crowned.  They 
were  represented  as  identified  with  revolutionary  America  in 
consanguinity,  in  cause,  in  feeling,  and  in  interest,  and  they 
\vere  cordially  invited  to  come  and  equally  partake  of  the  new 
world.  We  cheerfully  availed  ourselves  of  the  invitation  ;  we 


134  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

supreme  power,  rendering  the  government  at  once 
a  preposterous  and  useless  existence.  Paine 
might  perhaps  have  allowed,  I  think  he  does  in 
his  Rights  of  Man,  that  the  present  government 
of  the  United  States  arose  out  of  society.  Now, 
being  established,  does  it  admit  of  a  distinct 
convention,  constituted  for  the  purpose  of  re 
forming  it  ?  No,  it  does  not,  and  he  knew  it, 
or  he  was  very  ignorant.  The  government  of 
the  United  States — I  include  all  its  branches — is 
its  own  censor,  and  it  would  denominate  a  con 
vention,  even  arising  out  of  society,  organized 
to  correct  its  abuses?  to  overawe  and  to  controul 


came :  we  have  made  permanent  settlements  in  the  land  of 
our  forefathers ;  we  admire  and  we  are  attached  to  our  repub 
lican  institutions  ;  we  have  complied  with  the  injunctions  of 
the  constitutions  and  the  laws,  and  we  will  support  them, 
upon  equal  terms,  with  our  lives  and  our  fortunes.  But  how 
are  we  treated  ?  What  has  been  our  reception  ?  Has  good  faith 
been  observed  ?  Have  the  promises  been  performed  ?  Are  not 
we,  who  are  CITIZENS  by  all  the  solemnities  and  obligations 
of  law,  treated  as  aliens — stigmatised  as  foreigners — made 
use  of  for  personal  and  party  purposes,  but  carefully  excluded 
even  from  choice  in  the  selection  of  our  rulers  ?  Can  any  other 
definition  of  slavery  be  given  ?  Can  human  ingenuity  devise 
offence  more  galling  and  complete,  more  humiliating  and  de 
grading  ?  We  complain  not  of  the  constitutions  and£he  laws: 
they  are  liberal  in  principle  and  benign  in  operation.  They 
enjoin  an  abjuration  of  former  allegiance:  have  we  not  with 
alacrity  complied  with  the  injunction  ?  They  require  an  oath 
of  fidelity  to  the  union  and  to  the  states  :  devoted  in  spirit  and 
iji  truth  to  both,  we  have  eagerly  taken  it.  What  more  is 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  135 

it,  a  treasonable  body,  and  as  such,  if  not  guilty 
of  a  base  and  cowardly  desertion  of  its  duty,  act 
against  it.  Nor  is  such  a  convention  admissible 
amongst  us  for  any  purpose  ^whatsoever.  The 
people  cannot  with  regard  either  to  the  national 
government  or  to  the  governments  of  the  respec 
tive  states,  establish  a  convention  for  any  one 
purpose  of  government.  Operative  propositions 
for  altering  our  constitutions  cannot  come  from 
the  people  :  they  must  come  from  the  national  or 
from  the  state  legislatures,  or  they  cannot  ap 
proach  us  at  all.  The  constitution  of  the  state 
of  New- York  was  altered,  I  will  not  say  amend- 


required  ?  What  more  can  be  expected  ?  The  laws  require 
no  more.  Shall  an  under-plot,  a  counter  operation,  individual 
jealousy,  and  pale-faced  cabal,  frowned  upon  by  the  very 
elements  of  the  state,  subvert  the  law — put  it  at  defiance — 
trample  it  under  foot  ?  The  law  places  upon  the  same  undis- 
tinguishable  level,  the  citizen  of  native  and  the  citizen  of 
foreign  birth.  Are  we  to  be  told  in  this  enlightened  age  that 
the  law  is  not  to  govern  ;  that  the  essence  of  well-ordered  so 
ciety  is  not  a  government  of  laws,  but  a  government  of  the 
worst  passions  ?  Go  back  then  to  a  state  of  anarchy  ;  tear  out 
the  bowels  of  society ;  revert  to  the  rude  condition  of  untutored 
nature,  and  let  the  strongest  govern.  We  have  never  ceased 
to  cherish  and  to  inculcate  those  opinions  which  are  most  con 
sonant  to  the  civil  and  social  state.  We  have  remonstrated 
against  distinctions,  at  once  impolitick  and  unjust,  between 
native  and  adopted  citizens  ;  but  have  not  our  remonstrances 
and  efforts  been  i»  vain  ?  No  zeal,  no  exertions,  no  services, 
however  disinterested,  unremitted,  or  great,  have  been  suffi 
cient  to  shield  us  from  an  epithet  which,  while  it  poisons  the 


136  LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

ed,  a  few  years  since,  by  a  convention  of  the 
state.  But  did  the  convention  proceed  from  the 
people  ?  It  did  not ;  it  was  convened  by  the 
state  legislature,  and  if  it  had  not  been,  there 
would  have  been  no  convention ;  the  people 
having  no  right,  and  they  know  it,  to  form  one. 
But  even  this  convention,  so  called  by  the  state 
legislature,  was  not  for  reforming  the  abuses  of 
the  government ;  that  is  a  very  different  and  a 
very  inadmissible  thing.  As  to  our  federal  con 
vention,  out  of  which  the  national  government 
arose,  it  was  not  assembled  by  the  national  gov 
ernment,  for  we  had  none,  nor  by  the  people, 


social  and  impairs  the  enjoyment  of  political  life,  must  ulti^ 
mately  terminate  in  the  ruin  of  the  republican  party  in  this 
city.  We  have  been  incessantly  calumniated  for  having  been 
born  in  the  land  which  gave  birth  to  the  fathers  of  this  coun  • 
try.  After  long  and  patient  suffering  under  accumulated  abuse, 
from  many  of  the  very  party  which  we  have  zealously  and  at 
great  expense  of  labour  and  money  supported,  a  line  of  de- 
markation  is  at  length  drawn,  too  legible  to  be  mistaken,  and 
too  offensive  not  to  rouse  your  feelings.  Fellow  citizens,  you 
are  systematically  excluded  from  the  republican  committee  of 
nomination,  now  assembled  to  name  representatives  to  govern 
you.  Look  at  the  ward  committees,  read  over  their  names, 
and  lo !  how  entirely,  and  with  what  caution  and  care  you 
have  been  excluded  from  a  vote  in  the  selection  of  legislators, 
by  whose  acts  your  lives,  your  liberty,  and  your  property, 
will  be  bound  ?  Is  not  this  the  very  slavery  from  which  you 
revolted  in  your  native  land?  Is  it  not  in  kind  and  degree 
exactly  the  despotism  from  which  the  colonies,  now  United 
States,  revolted  when  under  the  dominion  of  the  British  king  ? 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  137 

for  they  assumed  no  such  power  :  it  was  recom 
mended  by  a  competent  authority.  I  say  that 
we  had  no  national  government,  for  that  cannot 
be  government  which  has  not  enforcing  powers. 
In  whatever  light  Paine's  argument — for  no 
doubt  he  called  it  an  argument — be  viewed ;  whe 
ther  in  respect  to  abstract  principles,  as  to  which 
it  is  exceedingly  absurd,  or  in  reference  to  prac 
tice,  of  which  there  is  not  nor  can  there  be  any 
example,  it  was  equally  weak  and  mischievous. 
It  abused  the  ignorant  by  deceiving  them.  It  was 
laughed  at  or  despised  by  the  wise. 

The  second  part  of  the  Rights  of  Man  is,  with 


What  greater  tyranny  can  you  be  under  than  that  which  call* 
upon  you  to  support  legislators,  in  the  selection  of  whom  you 
have  no  choice  ?  "  Representation  and  taxation,"  congress 
asserted  when  it  severed  the  ties  which  had  bound  the  colonies 
to  the  parent  state,  "  are  inseparable."  The  maxim  was  just 
then  ;  is  it  not  so  now  ?  If  it  at  any  time  stood  in  need  of 
the  force  of  authority  "or  the  persuasions  of  eloquence,  both 
were  lavished  upon  it  in  the  parliament  of  England,  when 
England  was  transporting  hither  her  fleets  and  armies  to 
repress  the  welcome  risings  of  a  free  spirit.  "  My  position,* 
said  the  great  lord  Camden  in  the  house  of  lords,  is  this ;  I 
repeat  it;  I  will  maintain  it  to  my  last  hour.  Taxation  and 
representation  are  inseparable.  This  position  is  founded  on, 
the  laws  of  nature.  It  is  more  ;  it  is  itself  an  eternal  law  of 
nature.  For  whatever  is  a  man's  own,  is  absolutely  his  own. 
No  man  has  a  right  to  take  it  from  him  without  his  consent. 
Whoever  attempts  to  do  it,  attempts  an  injury  ;  whoever 
does  it,  commits  a  robbery."  Alas  !  has  our  republick  turned 
upon  itself,  and  in  the  short  period  of  twenty  years  (from  the 

S 


138  LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

unimportant  alterations  and  additions,  merely  a 
transcript  of  the  first.  Part  the  second  contains 
chapters 

"  Of  Society  and  Civilization, 

"  Of  the  origin  of  the  present  old  governments, 

"  Of  the  old  and  new  systems  of  government. 

"  On  Constitutions :"  to  which  a  miscellaneous 
chapter  is  added. 

Whoever  recurs  to  the  chapter  on  "  Society 
and  Civilization,"  in  the  hope  or  expectation  of 
finding  a  regular  and  able  disquisition,  will  be 
miserably  disappointed.  A  few  loose  observa 
tions  are  thrown  together  without  method,  and 


adoption  of  the  constitution)  abandoned  its  own  principles  ? 
To  you,  fellow  citizens,  the  maxim  is  NOW  denied  :  Taxation 
and  representation  are  no  longer  inseparable  !  The  sam« 
despotism  which  England  attempted  to  impose  upon  the 
United  States,  is  now  lorded  over  you.  You  will  be  called 
upon  in  the  imperious  name  of  the  law  to  contribute  your  pro 
portion  to  the  maintenance  of  government :  for  you,  laws  will 
be  made,  prescribing  punishment  and  awarding  death  ;  but 
remember,  that  the  persons,  who  view  you  as  their  slaves, 
have  assiduously  excluded  you  from  the  selection  of  the  men 
to  whom  power  so  important  and  of  such  magnitude  is  to  be 
confided.  Shall  we  again  name  the  known  and  alleged  cause 
of  this  exclusion  ?  It  is  said  that  you  are  FOREIGNERS  ! 
Yes,  you  who  have  complied  with  all  the  requisites  of  the 
constitution  and  the  laws,  and  are  of  right  and  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  citizens^  are  banished,  by  men  calling  them 
selves  republicans,  from  publick  confidence !  Countrymen 
of  Emmet  and  of  Tone,  of  Gerald  and  of  Margaret,  of 
Fletcher  and  of  Skirving,  what  say  you  to  this  ?  If  all  self- 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  1  39 

made  without  either  elegance  or  force.  Of  the  ' 
progress  from  the  primitive  state  to  that  which  is 
termed  the  civilized,  nothing  is  said ;  and  as  to 
the  diversified  nature  of  society,  the  infinite  com 
plexity  of  its  actions  and  features,  and  the  prin 
ciples  from  which  they  proceed,  there  is  nothing 
to  recompense  the  labour  of  perusal ;  110  original 
ity,  no  order,  no  vigour  of  thought,  no  grace 
fulness  of  expression ;  nothing  to  admire,  nor 
any  thing  to  condemn,  but  malice  of  design,  and 
a  gross  imposition  of  a  formal  chapter  on  inform 
al  nothing. 

His  chapter  "  of  the  origin  of  the  present  old 


respect  and  national  recollections  be  not  extinct — if  you  are 
not  the  inglorious  descendants  of  illustrious  ancestors — if  all 
remembrance  of  the  tyranny  which  you  yourselves  have  suf 
fered,  and  the  toils  and  perils  which  you  have  encountered  to 
escape  from  its  deadly  grasp,  be  not  removed  from  the  seat 
of  memory — if  your  feelings  be  not  blunted  by  faction — if 
your  hearts  are  susceptible  of  a  pang,  you  will  rcstsl  this 
systematic  effort  to  reduce  you  to  the  condition  of  slaves. 
You  will  be  called  upon  to  vote  for  the  republican  ticket. 
Vote  not  at  all.  Those  who  for  years  have  ridiculed  many  of 
you  and  calumniated  you  all,  and  who  have  at  length  capped 
the  climax  of  their  sneers  and  their  insults  by  excluding  you 
from  the  committee  of  nomination,  will  solicit,  flatter,  and 
cajole  you  in  behalf  of  a  ticket,  ivhich  they  harae  Jdndly  nomi 
nated  for  you!  Fellow  citizens,  WITHHOLD  YOUR  VOTES! 
Tell  them,  if  you  condescend  to  listen  to  their  importunities 
for  your  suffrages,  that  you  will  extend  your  aid  to  the  repub 
lican  cause  when  their  liberality,  equalling  the  liberality  of 
the  laws,  will  admit  you  to  an  equal  participation.  Resolve 


140  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

governments,"  consists  of  two  pages !  The  title 
is  a  misnomer,  for  of  the  plural  he  takes  no  no 
tice.  Its  wretched  contents  are  confined  to  the 
British  government,  whose  origin  he  ignorantly 
refers  to  the  Norman  conquest.  He  either  knew 
nothing  of  the  Saxon  principles,  which  form  the 
basis  of  it,  as  well  as  of  our  own,  or,  in  order 
to  excite  the  people  to  tumult  and  devote  the 
government  to  subversion,  he  chose  falsely  to 
represent  it  as  one  of  conquest  only.  The  Nor 
man  conquest  did  not  annihilate  the  ancient 
liberty  of  England.  It  did  indeed  introduce  a 
new  line  of  kings,  and  it  suspended  for  a  time 


to  abstain  from  the  polls,  and  teach  your  would-be-masters, 
by  mildness  of  demeanour  and  firmness   of  resolution,    that 
resisting  tyranny  wherever  you  find   it,   or  from   whatever 
quarter  it  may  come,  you  will  be  respected. 
RESOLUTIONS. 

Whereas  the  just  resistance  of  the  colonies,  now  United 
States,  to  the  government  of  England,  was  founded  upon  the 
fact,  that  the  colonies  were  not  represented  in  the  parlia 
ment,  and  that  therefore  they  were  not  bound  by  its  laws  ; 
and  whereas  our  countrymen  essentially  contributed  to  the 
atchievement  of  our  independence ;  and  whereas  we  have 
been  systematically  excluded  from  the  general  republican 
committee,  now  assembled,  and  therefore  from  all  choice  in 
the  selection  of  members  who  are  ,to  represent  the  city  of 
New-York  in  the  assembly  of  the^'sfSlfe'  Therefore, 

Resolved,  unanimously.  That  repelling  with  just  indigna 
tion  a  distinction  made  between  republican  citizens  of  the 
same  state,  we  will  not  support  a  ticket,  in  the  formation  of 
which  we  have  been  excluded  from  any  participation. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  HI 

its  freedom.  But  liberty  afterwards  shone  forth 
with  more  than  its  ancient  Saxon  splendour. 
The  great  charter  was  succeeded  by  the  treason 
law  of  Edward  the  III.  the  principal  provision  of 
which  has  been  wisely  incorporated  into  our  fed 
eral  constitution.  And  these  and  other  glorious 
acts  were  again  followed  by  those  substantial 
ones  of  freedom,  which  were  passed  at  the  set 
tlement  of  William  the  HI.  If,  therefore,  his 
anomalous  thoughts,  his  worthless  remarks,  were 
applicable  to  England  at  the  period  of  the  Nor 
man  conquest,  subsequent  events  had  superceded 
and  rendered  them  inapplicable  and  impertinent  ^ 
when  he  wrote  them.  But  his  object  was  not  to 
reason  :  it  was  to  misrepresent ;  it  was  to  involve 
the  people  in  misery,  the  government  in  ruin. 

On  "  the  old  and  new  systems  of  govern 
ments,"  he  is  yet  more  seditious,  but  not  more 
argumentative.  The  new  differs  from  the  old  in 
the  difference,  in  his  opinion,  between  represent 
ative  and  hereditary  functions.  If  he  meant  that 
a  representative  executive  in  contradistinction  to 


Resolved,  unanimously.  That  500  copies  of  the  above  ad 
dress  and  resolution  be  printed  in  hand  bills,  for  the  benefit  of 
our  fellow  republican  adopted  citizens. 

Resolved,  unanimously,  That  the  said  address  and  resolu 
tions  be  published  in  the  American  Citizen. 

ARCHIBALD  TAYLOR,  Chairman. 
S.  JDEMPSEY,  Secretary. 


142  UFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

one  that  is  hereditary,  is  a  branch  of  government 
altogether  new,  what  shall  we  say  of  his  igno 
rance  ?  Had  he  no  acquaintance  with  the  his 
tories  of  those  nations,  ancient  and  modern, 
over  which  executives,  no  matter  by  what  name 
called,  whether  kings  or  emperours,  consuls  or 
dictators,  had  been  elected  .?  Was  he  ignorant 
of  their  perpetual  turbulence ;  of  the  many  re 
volutions  which  their  elections  occasioned ;  of  the 
oceans  of  blood  which  were  shed,  for  no  purpose 
but  that  of  capricious  and  useless  change  ?  But 
these  elections  were  made  by  a  few  ;  by  a  se 
nate  ;  by  a  diet ;  by  a  cabal ;  not  by  the  people. 
Indeed  !  Does  then  the  mere  extension  of  a  fun 
damental  principle  of  a  government  constitute  a 
new  principle  and  a  new  government  ?  I  wish 
too  to  know  what  nation,  when  his  rebellious 
Rights  of  Man  burst  upon  the  world,  was  in  pos 
session  of  this  new  government.  The  United 
States  ?  Not  at  all ;  and  yet  he  alluded  to  the 
United  States,  and  to  no  other  nation,  for  then 
France  had  not  cut  off  the  head  of  her  monarch, 
nor  overturned  her  government,  nor  plundered 
her  churches,  nor  covered  the  face  of  her  soil 
with  blood.  The  constitution  of  the  United 
States  peremptorily  denies  to  the  people,  abso 
lutely  withholds  from  them,  the  right  of  electing 
their  president;  and  it  does  so  undoubtedly  upon 
the  presumption,  which  is  the  fact,  that  they 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINS.  143 

are  incompetent  to  a  wise  choice.  If  this  be  noC 
the  reason,  then  the  right  is  wantonly  and  tyran 
nically  withheld.  The  president,  by  the  consti 
tution,  is  to  be  chosen  by  electors,  an  interme 
diate  aristocratical  body,  thrust  in  between  the 
president  and  the  people,  who  may  indeed  be 
elected  by  the  people,  or  be  chosen  by  the  state 
legislatures,  as  the  state  legislatures  see  fit.  This 
was  the  principle  when  the  anarchist  w7rote,  but 
what  is  the  practice  to  which  it  has  since  been 
reduced  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  is  considered  by 
his  party  as  the  quintessence  of  all  republicanism  ; 
as  the  very  marrow  of  the  new  system  ?  Consi 
dering  the  constitutional  relation  of  the  people  to 
the  electors,  completely  aristocratical  as  the  pro 
cess  of  the  election  is,  as  too  near,  he  indirectly, 
but  all  powerfully,  nominates  his  successor ;  a 
caucus  of  members  of  congress  is  convened  at  his 
nod,  and  managed  by  him ;  it  echoes  his  nomi 
nation  ;  the  people  clap  their  hands  and  shout  for 
republicanism,  and  the  electors,  awed  by  the 
popular  will,  which  always  obeys  the  mandate  of 
the  president,  are  forced,  by  their  love  of  popu 
larity,  by  considerations  of  office,  if  they  have 
any,  by  present  expectations  and  future  pros 
pects,  to  vote  for  the  successor  nominated  by  the 
expiring  president.  Is  this  election  ?  Is  this  the  "' 
new  system  ?  Is  it  not  as  old  as  intrigue,  and  is  y 
not  intrigue  as  old  as  politicks  ?  If  this  be  not 


144  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

monarchy  in  fact,  with  hypocrisy  and  abominable 
delusion  added  to  it,  then  a  right  angle  is  a 
square. 

And  yet  in  this  very  chapter,  contrasting  the 
hereditary  and  representative  systems,  Paine 
says :  "  but  the  case  is,  that  the  representative 
system  diffuses  such  a  body  of  knowledge 
throughout  a  nation,  on  the  subject  of  govern 
ment,  as  to  explode  ignorance  a?id  preclude  impo 
sition  !  The  craft  of  courts  cannot  be  acted  on 
that  ground  :  there  is  no  place  for  mystery ;  no 
where  for  it  to  be  begun." 

How  heartily  our  politicians  must  laugh  at  his 
ignorance,  or  applaud  his  imposition ! 

I  hazard  nothing  in  remarking,  unless  it  be  ha 
zardous  to  state  the  truth,  that,  however  excel 
lent  the  system  of  our  government  may  be  in 
theory,  the  whole  operation  of  our  system  of  po 
liticks  in  practice,  with  the  chiefs  who  lead  the 
two  parties,  and  who  by  hook  or  by  crook  govern 
the  nation,  is  one  of  mystery,  craft,  and  imposi 
tion.  In  these  articles,  which  abound  amongst 
us,  no  nation  can  vie  with  the  United  ^States. 
That  I  hold  to  be  impossible. 

His  chapter  "  on  constitutions,"  is  a  tedious 
history  of  the  rise,  progress,  and  final  adoption 
of  our  national  constitution.  Upon  this  he  builds 
an  argument  which  is  at  war  with  fact.  The 
constitution,  he  gravely  and  didactically  remarks, 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  145 

is  a  law  to  the  government,  as  the  statutes  of  the 
government  are  laws  to  the  people.  I  grant  that 
it  is  so  in  theory,  and  that  it  cannot  be  so  in 
practice.  But  he  affirms  that  the  constitution 
cannot  be  broken  by  the  government,  as  in  all 
disputed  points,  being  printed,  it  can  be  produced 
to  settle  them.  Poor  iimo cent  man  !  He  makes 
this  philosophical  assertion  in  the  hope  of  con 
vincing  the  people  of  England,  that  they  would 
be  greatly  advantaged  by  a  revolution ;  by  de 
stroying  their  government,  and,  if  either  com 
motion  or  usurpation  would  permit,  by  making  a 
paper  constitution,  which,  being  a  law  to  the 
government  as  in  the  United  States,  the  govern 
ment  could  not  violate. 

How  many  instances  have  we  of  a  total  disre- ' 
gard  by  congress  of  the  principles,  the  spirit,  and 
the  letter  of  the  constitution  ?  How  often  has 
this  law  been  violated  ?  The  chiefs  of  the  two 
parties  do  indeed  sometimes  read  it,  although, 
generally  speaking,  they  do  not  read  much ;  but 
having  different  politicp,  different  expectations, 
different  designs,  they  expound  it  differently. 
To  a  federalist,  it  means  one  thing ;  to  a  repub 
lican,  another,  exactly  the  reverse ;  and  both 
bend  it  and  break  it  at  pleasure  to  suit  their  pur 
poses.  Neither  party  respects  it  when  it  is  in 
their  way.  It  has  now,  in  the  twenty-second 
year  of  its  age,  been  oftener  infracted  than  the 

T 


H6  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

English  bill  of  rights  has  during  a  period  of  more 
than  one  hundred  years.    The  people  of  England 
have  another  advantage  over  us.     Opposed  to  all 
violations  of  that  inestimable  act,  they  have  the 
merit  of  not  being  involved  in  the  guilt  of  its 
transgression.     But  when  the  'federal  majority  in 
congress,  to  answer  some  party  purpose,  violate 
it,  and  they  have  often/done  so,  the  federal  par 
ty,  always  folio  wing  their  leaders,  commend  and 
support  the  violation ;  and   when,  by  ever-fluc 
tuating  popular  will,  power  shifts,  and  the  repub 
lican  majority  in  congress  tear  the  paper  constitu 
tion  to  tatters-)  to  -very  ragsr  the  republican  party, 
also  following  their  leaders  in  atrocious  acts,  and 
leading  them,  when,  sometimes,  they  wish  not 
to  commit  them,  ring  peals  of  joy  throughout  the 
country^    Some  advantage  has  been  gained  over 
the  opposite  party,  and , as  the  constitution  is  al 
ways  out  of  the  question  in  party  struggles,  that 
is  subject  enough  for  triumph.     In  party  marches 
and  counter-marches,  skirmishes  and  battles,  the 
constitution  is  no  impediment  in  the  way  of  party 
victory  and  despotism. 

The  miscellaneous  chapter  was  peculiarly  in 
tended  to  make  the  soldiery  and  the  poor  eager 
for  a  revolution,  by  holding  out  to  them  suitable 
rewards.  It  proposes,  on  the  supposition  of  a 
new  government  being  established,  an  augment 
ation  of  the  pay  of  the  army — a  national  gift  to 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  147 

new  married  people — a  premium  to  parents  for 
children — a  fund  for  the  poor  and  the  aged — for 
men  out  of  work,  and  for  the  education  of  a  mil 
lion  and  a  half  of  children.  Did  we  not  know 
that  his  object  was  to  assort  and  to  organize  all 
the  means  of  national  destruction,  we  might  dig 
nify  his  project  with  the  epithet  of  chimerical. 

He  "  takes  it  for  granted,"  in  another  part  of 
the  chapter,(r)  "  that  an  alliance  may  be  formed 
between  England,  France,  and  America,  and 
that  the  national  expenses  of  France  and  England 
may  consequently  be  lessened.  The  same  fleets 
and  armies  will  no  longer  be  necessary  to  either, 
and  the  reduction  may  be  made  ship  for  ship  on 
each  side.  Though,  he  adds,  I  have  no  direct. 
authority  on  the  part  of  America,  I  have  good 
reason  to  conclude  that  she  is  disposed  to  enter 
into  a  consideration  of  such  a  measure,  provided 
that  the  governments  with  which  she  might  ally 
acted  as  national  governments,  and  not  as  courts 
enveloped  in  intrigue  and  mystery." 

No  doubt  France  would  be  pleased  not  only 
with  the  reduction  but  with  the  destruction  of  the 


(r)  When  the  Rights  of  Man  reached  Lewes,  where  Paine  v 
married  Miss  Ollive,  the   women,  as   with  one   voice,  said  : 
**  Od  rot  im,  let  im  come  ear  if  he  dast,  an  we'll  tell  im  what 
the  rights   of  ivomen  is :  we'll  toss  im  in  a  blanket  and  ring 
fan  out  o'  Lewes  wi'  our  frying  pans." 


t 
148  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

British  fleet.  There  is  not  a  jacobin  either  in 
Europe  or  in  the  United  States  that  does  not 
sigh  for  the  ruin  of  that  force,  that  proud  and 
triumphant  force,  which  is  the  safety  of  the 
world  against  the  ambition  and  tyranny  of  Na 
poleon.  Something  there  is  unaccountably  and 
unutterably  silly  in  the  proposition.  It  contem 
plates  a  national  government ;  a  government 
formed  according  to  the  atheistical  principles  9f 
the  desolaters  of  France,  upon  the  destruction  of 
the  old,  experienced,  solid,  and  free  government 
of  England.  If,  which  God  forbid,  England 
should  ever  have  the  misfortune  to  be  a  repub- 
lick,  still  a  fleet,  with  all  its  present  rights  and 
privileges,  and  even  its  abuses ;  all  its  spirit,  all 
its  gallantry,  and  all  its  success,  would  be  essen 
tial  to  the  maintenance  of  what  I  hope  will  be 
eternal  in  duration,  her  NATIONAL  INDEPENDENCE. 
But  as  to  the  alliance,  which  America  would 
be  "  willing  to  enter  into  with  England,  provided 
she  had  a  national  government,"  he  had  not,  for 
sooth,  direct  authority  from  the  United  States 
to  make  a  specifick  proposition.  No,  I  think 
not,  nor  any  indirect  authority  either,  though 
he  wished  to  make  the  people  of  England  be 
lieve,  that,  being  a  man  of  great  consequence, 
he  had  some  sort  of  a  mission,  even  from  the 
United  States,  to  revolutionize  England,  and,  if 
successful,  then  to  propose  an  alliance  with  the 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  149 

national  government.  Of  all  his  impostures  and 
vanities,  all  his  presumptions  on  ignorance  of  his 
character,  this  is  the  greatest.  No  direct  autho 
rity  from  a  government  which  had  found  itself 
obliged  to  dismiss  him  from  a  clerkship  for  a 
breach  of  office ! 

Wretched  as  Paine's  Common  Sense  is  in  point 
of  literary  merit,  his  Rights  of  Man,  a  pandect  of 
anarchy,  is  still  its  iftferiour.  Home  Tooke,  it 
was  said,  corrected  its  grammatical  errours,  but 
every  page  of  the  work  refutes  the  assertion.  He 
could  not  have  sanctioned  with  his  name  such 
sentences  as  the  following,  which  occur  in  almost 
every  page  of  the  book. 

"  He  introduced  his  proposal  to  the  doctor  by 
letter,  which  is  now  in  the  hands. of  Mr.  Beaumar- 
chais  in  Paris,  stating,  that,  as  the  Americans 
had  dismissed  their  king,  that  they  wrould  want 
another."  Rights  of  Man,  part  1. 

"  In  France  aristocracy  had  one  feature  less 
in  its  countenance  than  what  it  had  in  some  other 
countries."  Rights  of  Man,  part  1. 

"  He  did  not,  it  is  true,  threaten  to  go  over 
and  conquer  America,  but  only  with  great  digni 
ty  proposed,  that,  if  his  offer  was  not  accepted, 
that  an  acknowledgment  of  about  30,0001.  might 
be  made  to  him."  Part  1. 

"  It  may  therefore  be  of  service  to  Mr.  Burke's 
doctrine  to  make  this  story  known,  and  to  in- 


* 
150  LI'FE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

form  him,  that,  in  case  of  that  natural  extinction 
to  which  all  nobility  is  subject,  that  kings  may 
be  had  again  from  Normandy."  Part  1 . 

"  The  artificial  noble  shrinks  into  a  dwarf  be 
fore  the  noble  of  nature,  and  in  the  few  instances 
in  whom  nature,  as  by  a  miracle,  has  survived  in 
aristocracy,  those  men  despise  it."  Part  1. 

"  Several  other  reasons  contributed  to  produce 
this  determination.  I  wished  to  know  the  manner 
in  which  a  work,  written  in  a  style  of  thinking 
different  to  what  had  been  customary  in  England, 
would  be  received  before  I  proceeded  further." 
Part  2. 

"  The  authority  of  the  present  assembly  is  dif 
ferent  to  what  the  authority  of  future  assemblies 
will  be."  Part  1. 

In  the  few  instances  in  which  he  was  forcible 
and  elegant,  it  was  the  force  and  elegance  of  na 
ture,  irresistibly  making  their  way  through  an 
uncultivated  and  undisciplined  mind. 

Paine,  upon  the  hypothesis  that  his  motive  as 
to  England  was  not  revengeful,  which  is  not 
probable,  and  that  he  had  not  an  understanding 
with  the  French  revolutionists,  which  I  do  not 
believe,  was  one  of  those  robustious  anarchists 
who  are  for  tearing  every  thing  up  by  the  roots 
which  they  do  not  like  ;  for  prostrating  govern 
ment  by  violence ;  for  inflicting  upon  a  nation 
the  heaviest  calamities,  without  considering  the 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  151 

r fid.  They  who  stir  up  a  nation  to  revolt  with  a 
view  to  change  its  form  of  government,  should 
not  only  have  one  to  substitute  which  can  and 
will  obtain,  but  they  should  be  sure  that  it  is  in 
comparably  better  than  that  which  is  to  be  sub 
verted.  And  herein  they  always  assume  an 
awful  responsibility,  for  what  can  assure  them 
but  the  fact  ?  A  revolution  is  a  positive,  a  tre 
mendous  evil ;  whefeas  the  object  of  it  is  a  con 
tingent,  and,  even  if  successful,  a  very  problem 
atical  good.  And  when  all  is  destroyed — when 
the  tranquil  operations  of  systematized  society 
are  interrupted  by  violence — when  nothing  is 
heard  but  the  frightful  howl  of  commotion — no 
thing  seen  but  savage  man  embruing  his  hands  in 
human  blood — when  ignorance  and  passion  are 
let  loose  to  tyrannize  and  to  prey,  and  revolu 
tionary  factions,  never  seeking  the  common 
good,  stop  at  no  means,  however  base  and  cruel, 
to  aggrandize  themselves ;  is  it  certain  that  the 
government,  the  issue  of  scenes  so  unnatural,  so 
shocking,  would  be  the  one  which  was  originally 
intended  ?  Look  at  France — look  at  the  scenes 
of  confiscation  and  carnage  through  which  she 
has  passed,  if  you  have  a  heart  stout  enough  to 
gaze  upon  them,  and  then  reflect  upon  the  sort 
of  government  in  which  those  scenes  of  horrour 
have  finally  terminated  !  Would  the  means  be 
milder  in  England,  the  end  less  deplorable  ?  I 


152  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

think  not ;  both  would  be  much  the  same.  But 
in  case  of  a  revolution,  and  the  final  establish 
ment  of  what  is  called  a  representative  repub- 
lick,  like  ours,  for  example,  of  what  advantage 
could  it  be  to  England  ?  It  would  be  an  errour 
in  fact  as  well  as  in  argument  to  consider  the  re 
lative  condition  of  England  and  France  now,  as 
the  relative  condition  of  England  and  France  at 
the  usurpation  of  Cromwell.  If  we  go  a  little 
further  back,  in  order  to  make  ourselves  some 
what  more  familiar  with  what  has  been,  we  may 
say,  that  the  days  of  Azincour  and  Cressy  are 
passed :  Shakspeare  does,  indeed,  sometimes 
remind  us  of  them,  else  they  would  be  forgotten. 
Taking  circumstances  then  as  they  are,  I  think 
that  if  England  were  a  republick  like  ours, 
England  would  be  undone :  she  would  be  an 
adjunct  of  France  in  a  few  years  ;  she  could  not 
avoid  being  so.  France  cannot  indeed  conquer 
».  her,  but  universal  suffrage  would.  The  people, 
in  whose  hands  the  votes  of  the  nation  would  be 
placed,  and  to  whose  blind  direction  the  power 
of  the  nation  would  be  confided,  feel,  but  they 
do  not  think ;  they  cannot,  I  mean,  think  as  is 
necessary  to  save  a  nation.  War  brings  distress 
along  with  it  even  upon  England,  opulent  and 
powerful  as  she  is.  Imagine  Manchester,  Bir 
mingham,  Sheffield,  &c.  and  the  chief  part  of  the 
immense  population  of  London,  going  to  the  polls 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  153 

of  election,  pressed  by  poverty,  operated  upon  by 
all  the  arts  of  demagogues  out  of  power,  who 
want  to  get  in,  and  suffering,  perhaps,  the  pains 
of  hunger  :  Need  we  ask  what  the  consequences 
would  be  ?  New  men  would  come  into  the  go 
vernment  ;  peace  must  be  made ;  even  a  peace 
which  would  be  the  forerunner  of  national  sub 
jugation.  France  would  know  that  this  would 
be  unavoidable ;  she  would  know  that  there 
could  be  no  escape  for  England  but  to  a  govern 
ment  like  that  which  now  preserves  her  indepen 
dence,  her  power,  and  her  grandeur. 

I  am  not  drawing  from  fancy,  but  from  life. 
What  I  have  said  of  England  in  a  supposed  case 
applies  to  us  in  a  real  one.  It  wrould  be  foreign 
from  my  purpose  to  inquire  into  the  cause  of  our 
late  memorable  embargo,  but  it  was  suspected 
that,  in  advising  it,  Mr.  Jefferson  was  actuated 
by  a  strong  desire  to  co-operate  with  France  in 
the  commercial  warfare  W7hich  her  tyrant  had 
waged  against  England.  I  was  of  this  opinion 
then ;  I  am  so  still,  and  there  is  conclusive 
circumstantial  evidence  that  the  opinion  is 
correct.  Suppose,  however,  that  which  is  not 
true,  that  the  cause  for  the  embargo  was  a  suffi 
cient  one  ;  that  the  measure  was  forced  upon  us 
by  imperious  circumstances  ;  that  the  honour  of 
the  country  was  grossly  insulted,  and  her  rights 
wantonly  and  flagitiously  infringed  by  England, 

u 


154  LIFE   OF   THOMAS  PAINE. 

as  was  alleged ;  what  would  follow  ?  Why, 
that  as  the  embargo  was  the  most  coercive  and 
vindictive  measure  to  which  we  could  resort,  not 
being  in  a  condition  to  commence  offensive  war 
with  muskets,  cannon,  &c.  we  were  called  upon 
by  every  consideration  of  duty  to  support  it  until 
it  had  righted  all  our  wrongs  and  closed  up  the 
breaches  which  had  been  made  in  our  honour. 
But,  easy  as  the  people  generally  are  in  their 
circumstances,  the  embargo  occasioned  very 
great  distress,  and  after  suffering  it  a  year,  and 
the  people,  with  their  inii-versal  suffrage,  came  to 
the  polls  of  the  election,  the  government  found 
that  they  must  either  remove  the  embargo  or  the 
people  \vould  remove  them.  No  one  could  mis 
take  the  choice  that  would  be  made.  The  em 
bargo  was  abandoned. 

And  yet  the  distress,  compared  with  the  dis 
tress  which  war  would  occasion,  was  nothing. 
What  then  should  even  we  do  with  our  universal 
suffrage  in  case  of  war?  If  the  war  were  at 
home,  as  in  the  revolution ;  in  our  harbours,  in 
our  streets,  upon  our  farms,  we  might  do,  per- 
haps%  well  enough  with  it,  (Y)  for  as  the  bayonet 


(.7)  It  would  be  curious  enough  to  see  an  army  voting,  and 
the  vote  would,  perhaps,  be  still  more  curious.  The  men 
would  vote  as  the  officers  would  wish,  and  the  officers  would 
wish  as  the  government  desired.  Or,  it  may  be,  that  the  offi 
cers  and  the  men  would  turn  out  the  government. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  155 

would  be  at  our  breasts,  safety,  not  suffrage,  not 
party,  nor  party  triumphs,  nor  party  power  and 
emolument,  would  be  the  only  consideration. 
But  if  it  were  a  war  carried  on  abroad,  increas 
ing  expenses  and  occasioning  distress  at  home, 
universal  suffrage,  managed  by  our  very  expert 
leaders,  would  speedily  bring  it  to  an  issue,  but 
whether  for  the  reputation  and  safety  of  the 
country  or  not,  whether  with  the  government 
with  which  it  was  commenced,  are  problems 
which  I  will  not  attempt  to  solve. 

And  pray  what  in  England  would  be  the  ob 
ject  of  universal  suffrage  ?  Without  it,  the 
wisdom  of  England,  generally  speaking,  is  in 
parliament ;  with  it,  the  wisdom  of  the  United 
States  is  out  of  Congress.  Virginia,  indeed,  sends 
a  few  able  men  to  congress,  and  perhaps  the  rea 
son  is,  because  universal  suffrage  is  there  consi 
dered  anarchial  in  theory,  and  not  allowed  in 
practice.  The  honest,  the  enlightened,  the  patri- 
otick,  and  the  eloquent  Mr.  John  Randolph, 
proudly  boasts,  and  well  he  may,  that,  in  oppo 
sition  to  the  wishes  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  to  whose 
administration  he  was  opposed,  and  with  the  in 
fluence  and  efforts  of  the  government  against 
him,  the  freeholders  of  his  district  returned  him 
to  congress.  Here  and  there,  out  of  Virginia, 
an  able  man,  as  it  were  by  accident,  is  elected, 
but  the  chances  are  a  million  to  one  against  him. 


156  LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE, 

If  in  the  city  of  New- York,  where  universal 
suffrage  is  in  the/;///  tide  of  successful  experiment; 
where  those  govern  who  cannot  govern  them 
selves,  and  who  ought  every  where  to  be  go 
verned,  a  statesman  should  ever  be  elected,  it 
will  be  by  surprizing  the  popular  will.  Universal 
suffrage  has  a  mortal  aversion  from  talents.  It 
looks  to  itself  for  representatives.  If  in  its  dis 
trict  shoemakers,  for  instance,  are  the  most  nu 
merous  class,  every  thing  being  decided  by  vote, 
a  shoemaker,  a  very  honest  kind  of  a  man  no 
doubt,  is  transferred  from  his  knife  and  last  to 
the  hall  of  legislation.  No  nation  can  be  govern 
ed  by  well  meaning  but  incapable  men.  Eng 
land  can  only  be  ruined  by  presumptuous  igno 
rance  at  the  head  of  her  affairs. 

Government  was  at  length  roused  to  a  sense  of 
what  was  due  to  its  own  dignity,  and  to  the 
safety  and  tranquillity  of  the  kingdom.  On  the 
21st  of  May,  1792,  the  king  issued  a  proclama 
tion  for  suppressing  "  wicked  and  seditious  publi 
cations  ;"  alluding  to  but  not  naming  the  Rights 
of  Man.  On  the  same  day  the  attorney-general 
commenced  a  prosecution  against  Paine  as  au 
thor  of  the  work.  An  action  had  been  previous 
ly  commenced  against  Jordan  the  publisher  of  it, 
but  as  he  had  made  concessions  which  were  sa 
tisfactory  to  the  government,  the  prosecution  was 
discontinued. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  157 

The  king's  proclamation  was  an  act  of  graci- 
ousness.  The  work  was  clearly  seditious  in  the 
malice  of  intention  as  well  as  in  the  criminality 
of  object.  As  thousands  of  persons  besides  the 
booksellers  had  industriously  published  it,  the 
law,  if  the  administrators  of  it  had  been  vindict 
ively  inclined,  had  full  scope  for  operation.  The 
proclamation  notified  the  kingdom  of  the  diaboli 
cal  intentions  of  the 'author,  the  tendency  of  his 
demoralizing  work,  and  the  penalties  which  all 
publishers  of  it  incurred  of  those  admirable  laws, 
not  that  were  made  for  the  case,  but  those 
ancient  and  free  laws  which  the  United  States 
have  adopted  for  the  government  of  the  press. 
It  was  therefore  preventive,  not  retributive  jus 
tice.  MACKINTOSH  had  published,  as  he  now 
doubtless  regrets,  his  Vindicice  Gallicce,  an  ela 
borate  and  eloquent  defence  of  the  French  revo 
lution  ;  of  all  its  excesses,  all  its  robberies  and 
butcheries,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Burke's  Reflections. 
He  too  considered  the  British  government,  no 
doubt  truly,  as  having  abused  its  constitutional 
trust,  but  he  was  an  advocate  of  a  tranquil  and 
constitutional  reform ;  not  of  a  dissolution  of  the 
state,  not  of  revolution,  not  of  blood.  No  legal 
impediments,  therefore,  were  thrown  in  the  way 
of  the  publication  of  his  book,  nor  any  legal 
animadversions  pronounced  upon  it,  for  in  no 
nation  is  the  press  allowed  to  go  greater  lengths 


158  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

than  in  England.  Fox,  controverting  in  parlia 
ment  in  moments  of  reformation-zeal,  some  of 
the  maxims  of  Mr.  Burke,  quoted  Mackintosh's 
defence  in  a  strain  of  the  finest  eulogium.  This 
enlightened  friend  of  enlightened  and  durable 
freedom,  speaking,  however,  of  the  Rights  of 
Man  in  terms  of  indignant  contempt,  called  it, 
as  it  really  was,  a  libel(t)  on  the  constitution. 
The  proclamation,  view  it  in  whatever  light  we 
may,  was  intended  to  render  unnecessary  the 
operation  of  the  laws,  by  preventing  the  commis 
sion  of  offences  against  them,  and  to  preserve  the 
lives,  the  liberty,  and  the  property  of  the  subjects, 
by  averting  that  revolution  which  was  the  object 
of  Paine. 

Loyal  associations  now  sprung  up  to  counteract 
the  revolutionary  efforts  of  the  revolution  clubs. 
Passion  met  passion  until,  in  the  struggle,  on  the 
one  side  for  a  dissolution  of  the  government,  on 
the  other  for  its  existence,  the  nation  became 
more  and  more  agitated.  In  this  state  of  things, 
Paine  published,  about  August,  1792,  his  "  Ad 
dress  to  the  Addressers."  This  is  a  miserable 
lampoon  on  the  orators  in  parliament  who  had 
spoken  on  the  side  of  the  king's  proclamation,  as 
well  as  on  those  placemen  into  whose  offices 


(/)  Paine's  Address  to  the  Addressers. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  159 

Paine  would  willingly  have  crept  before  he  left 
England,  in  the  year  1 774.    He  states  that  a  pro 
secution  had  been  commenced  against  him — de 
clares  the  incompetency  of  &jury  to  decide  on  a 
work  so  recondite  and  important  as  the  Rights  of 
Man — talks  quite  philosophically  of  the  propriety 
of  taking  the  sense  of  the  natio?i  upon  it  by  polling 
each  man — pronounces  the  laws  in  relation  to  the 
press  as  fundamentally  bad,  the  administration  of 
them  by  the  courts  as  notoriously  corrupt,  and 
denies  that  the  Rights  of  Man   is  seditious,  for 
that  it  "  contains  a  plan  for  augmenting  the  pay 
of  the  soldiers,  and  meliorating  the  condition  of 
the  poor!"     While  he  was  preparing  this  stuff 
for  the  press,  he  published  letters  to  the  chairmen 
of  several  of  the  meetings  which  were  convened 
to    compliment   the  king   on  his  proclamation. 
He  was  now  evidently  awed  by  the  vigour  of  the 
government  and  the  patriotick  spirit   of  the  na 
tion.     All  over  England  he  was  carried  about  in 
effigy  with  a  pair  of  stays  under  his  arm,  and 
the  populace,   staymakers   and   all,    alternately 
laughed  and  swore  at  the  impudent  attempts  of  a 
staymaker  to  destroy  their  government. 

His  trial  was  to  come  on  in  the  following  De 
cember.  Whilst  he  foresaw  and  no  doubt  dread^ 
ed  the  imprisonment  which  awaited  him,  a 
French  deputation  announced  to  him  in  London, 
in  the  preceding  September,  that  the  department 


160  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

of  Calais  had  elected  him  a  member  of  the  Na 
tional  Convention.  This  was  doubly  grateful ; 
grateful  in  the  escape  which  it  afforded  him  from 
a  just  punishment,  without  the  imputation  of 
cowardice  ;  grateful  in  the  honour  which  bloody 
anarchists  had  conferred  upon  him  by  electing  him 
a  member  of  their  order.  Without  delay  he 
proceeded  to  Dover,  where  a  custom-house  officer 
examined  his  baggage,  and  finally  let  him  pass. 
He  had  not,  however,  sailed  from  Dover  for 
Calais  more  than  twenty  minutes,  when  an  order 
was  received  from  the  government  to  detain  him. 
He  states  his  detention  and  examination  at  Dover 
in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Dundas,  dated  Calais,  Septem 
ber  15,  1792. 

On  the  25th  of  September,  he  published  a  letter 
addressed  to  the  people  of  France,  in  which,  sa 
luting  them  as  "  fellow  citizens,"  as  they  certain 
ly  were,  he  says : — "  I  receive  with  affectionate 
gratitude  the  honour  which  the  late  National 
Assembly  has  conferred  upon  me  by  adopting 
me  a  citizen  of  France,  and  the  additional  honour 
of  being  elected  by  my  fellow  citizens  a  member 

/of  the  National  Convention."  He  is  aware 
that  the  "  moment  of  any  great  change,  is 
unavoidably  a  moment  of  terrour  and  con- 

,/ fusion."  This  terrour  and  confusion,  he  had, 
however,  endeavoured  to  excite  in  England. 
The  world  has  reason  to  be  thankful  that 


LIFE    OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  161 

he  did  not  succeed. — He  encourages  the  revo 
lutionists  of  France  to  persevere  by  all  the  argu 
ments  which  he  could  draw  from  his  combustible 
magazine. — A  new  constitution,  he  observes, 
must  be  formed,  in  which  the  "bagatelles  of 
monarchy,  royalty,  regency,  and  hereditary  suc 
cession  shall  be  exposed."  Another  new  consti 
tution  has  since  been  formed,  in  which  the  tyrant 
who  now  governs  France  has  taken  to  himself  all 
those  "  bagatelles  /"  This  is  the  natural  effect 
of  revolution ;  of  "  terrour  and  confusion."  A! 
mild  and  wholesome  reform  of  the  government 
would  have  prevented  the  confiscations,  the  pro 
scriptions,  and  the  murders  which  have  been 
committed;  preserved  the  peace  of  the  world, 
and  left  France  with  much  of  freedom,  of  which 
she  has  nothing  now. 

Notwithstanding  his  escape  from  England,  and 
his  election  to  the  National  Convention  by  his 
fellow  citizens  of  France,  his  trial,  as  if  present, 
came  on  at  Guildhall,  London,  December  18, 
1792,  before  Lord  Kenyon  and  a  special  jury. 
Mr.  Percival,  now  chancellor  of  the  exchequer, 
opened  the  information.  Paine  was  tried  for 
libellous  passages  contained  in  the  Rights  of  Man, 
part  second.  The  attorney-general,  Mr.  Mac- 
donald,  carelessly,  and  therefore  with  little  abili 
ty,  opened  the  case  to  the  jury. 


162  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

A  circumstance  had,  however,  occurred,  of 
which  he  dexterously  and  powerfully  availed 
himself.  Paine  had  foolishly  written  a  private 
letter  to  the  attorney-general,  dated  "Paris,  llth 
November,  first  year  of  the  republick,"  which 
he  read  to  the  jury.  In  this  letter  he  says  : — 
"  the  time,  sir,  is  becoming  too  serious  to  play 
with  court  prosecutions  and  sport  with  national 
rights.  The  terrible  examples  that  have  taken 
place  here  upon  men  who  less  than  a  year  ago 
thought  themselves  as  secure  as  any  prosecuting 
judge,  jury,  or  attorney-general  can  now  do  in 
England,  ought  to  have  some  weight  with  men 
in  your  situation. 

"  That  the  government  of  England  is  as  great 
if  not  the  greatest  perfection  of  fraud  and  cor 
ruption  that  ever  took  place  since  governments 
began,  is  what  you  cannot  be  a  stranger  to,  un 
less  the  constant  habit  of  seeing  it  has  blinded 
your  senses, 

"  Is  it  possible  that  you  or  I  can  believe,  or 
that  reason  can  make  any  other  man  believe, 
that  the  capacity  of  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Guelph, 
or  any  of  his  profligate  sons,  is  necessary  to  the 
government  of  a  nation  ?" 

If  the  atrocious  libel  itself,  coupled  with  the 
situation  of  France,  did  not  fire  the  jury  with 
indignation,  this  insolent  letter  must  have  done 
,so.  The  terrible  examples  of  France,  which 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  163 

he  plainly  threatened  should  be  brought  home 
to  England,  could  not  but  alarm  men  of  feeling 
and  reflection. 

In  behalf  of  Paine,  Mr.  Erskine  amused  the  ** 
court  with  an  ingenious   and  eloquent   speech. 
The  attorney-general  rose  to  reply,  but   the  jury 
told  him  that  it  was  unnecessary,  and  instantly 
returned  a  verdict  of  GUILTY. 

As  the  testimony  given  by  Mr.  Chapman  upon 
the  trial  illustrates  the  character  of  Paine,  I  will 
here  introduce  it. 

Mr.  Chapman,  whom  Paine  calls  "  an  honest 
man,"(?/)  was  the  printer  of  the  second  part  of 
the  Rights  of  Man.  When  a  few  sheets  were 
printed,  concluding  from  the  sale  of  the  first  part 
that  he  could  gain  something  by  purchasing  the 
second,  he  offered  Paine  a  thousand  pounds  for 
the  copy-right.  But  when  he  had  printed  to  page 
112,  finding  that  it  was  highly  seditious,  he 
declined  to  have  any  thing  more  to  do  with  it, 
and  returned  to  its  author  the  remainder  of  his 
copy.  Paine  insinuates(V)  that  the  offer  to 
purchase  came  in  fact  from  the  minister  through 
Chapman ;  that  Chapman,  contrary  to  all  the 
rules  of  printing,  had  shown  the  manuscript  to 


(«)  Appendix  to  the  Rights  of  Man,  pavt  °. 
(t»)  Appendix. 


164  LIFE  OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

Mr.  Pitt,  and  that  having  ascertained  that  the 
work  could  not  be  suppressed  by  purchase,  Mr. 
Pitt  had  persuaded  Chapman  to  print  no  more  of 
it.  All  this  accords  very  well  with  the  vanity 
of  Paine.  The  reader  will  now  understand 
Chapman's  testimony,  which  I  quote  from  the 
London  edition,  1793,  of  the  trial. 

"  THOMAS  CHAPMAN  sworn. 
Examined  by  Mr.  Solicitor  General. 

ft.  What  business  are  you  ? 

A.  A  printer,  sir. 

Q.  Do   you    know  the  defendant,    Thomas 
Paine  ? 

A.  I  do,  sir. 

ft.  Upon  what  occasion  did  you  become  ac 
quainted  with  him  ? 

A.  Upon  the  recommendation  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Christie. 

ft.  For  what  purpose  was  Mr.  Paine  introduc 
ed  to  you,  or  you  to  him  ? 

A.  I  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Christie  to  Mr, 
Paine,  as  a  printer,  to  print  some  book  he  had. 

ft.  You  were  introduced  by  Mr.  Christie  to  Mr, 
Paine  to  print  some  book  ? 

A.  Yes. 

ft.  When  was  that  introduction  ? 

A.  I  cannot  exactly  remember ;  it  was  the  be 
ginning  of  the  last  year. 

ft.  The  year  1791  ? 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  165 

A.  I  think  it  was. 

Q.  Do  you  remember  what  book  it  was  that 
you  say  Mr.  Paine  had  ? 

A.  It  was  the  first  part  of  the  Rights  of  Man. 

ft.  Are  you  a  publisher  as  well  as  a  printer  ? 

A.  I  am  not,  sir ;  I  am  merely  a  printer. 

Q.  Did  you  print  the  first  part  of  the  Rights  of 
Man? 

A.  I  did,  Sir. 

ft.  Who  was  the  selling  bookseller  ? 

A.  Mr.  Jordan,  of  Fleet-street. 

ft.  Had  you  any  intercourse  with  Jordan  and 
Paine  upon  that  book  ? 

A.  I  had,  sir. 

ft.  What  was  that  intercourse  relative  to  ? 

A.  Merely  relative  to  the  manner  of  publishing 
the  book. 

ft.  Did  Jordan  in  fact  publish  the  book  ? 

A.  He  did,  sir. 

ft.  Had  you  any  intercourse  with  Mr.  Paine 
relative  to  printing  this  book  which  I  have  in  my 
hand  ?  (shewing  the  book  to  Mr.  Chapman.) 

A.  The  first  edition  of  this  book  I  had,  sir  ;  I 
don't  conceive  I  printed  this  edition,  but  the  first 
edition  I  did — the  first  part  of  the  Rights  of  Man 
I  printed. 

ft.  Is  this  the  first  or  second  part  ? 

A.  This  is  the  second  part. 

ft.  Look  at  that. 


166  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

A.  I  printed  a  part  of  the  second  parf. 

Mr.  Erskine. — ft.  Do  you  mean  that  very 
book,  can  you  swear  to  that  book  ? 

A.  I  cannot,  sir. 

Mr.  Solicitor  General. — ft.  Then  this  second 
part  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  you  say  you  printed  a 
part  of  it  ? 

A.  A  part  of  it  ?. 

ft.  Will  you  inform  my  lord  and  the  jury  what 
part  of  it  you  did  print  ? 

A.  I  printed  as  far  as  page  112,  signature  H. 

ft.  By  signature  H,  you  mean  that  letter  Hat 
the  bottom  of  the  page  ? 

A.  Yes,  sir. 

ft.  Now  upon  whose  employment  did  you  print 
so  much  of  the  second  part  of  the  Rights  of 
Man? 

A.  Mr.  Paine's  employment. 

ft.  Did  you,  Mr.  Chapman,  print  the  rest  of  the 
work,  from  letter  H  to  the  conclusion  of  it  ? 

A.  I  had  the  copy  in  my  possession  of  it  so  far 
as  146. 

ft.  What  do  you  mean  by  the  copy  ? 

A.  The  manuscript,  sir  ;  I  had  the  manuscript 
as  far  as  146. 

ft.  Did  you  stop  at  1 12,  signature  H. 

A.  I  stopped  at  112,  but  my  people  had  com 
posed  to  page  146,  which  was  not  printed  by  me. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  167 

Q.  Now  had  you  any  conversation  with  Mr. 
Paine  relative  to  printing  the  remainder  of  the 
work  ? 

A.  I  had. 

Q.  And  if  you  had,  what  was  that  conversa 
tion  ? 

A.  When  I  had  finished  page  112,  or  sheet  H9 
the  proof  sheet  /  came  into  nvy  hands. 

Court.  When  you  printed  <7,  you  say  /  came 
into  your  hands  ? 

A.  No,  H. 

Q.  And  then  the  proof  sheet  I  came  into  your 
hands  ? 

A.  The  proof  sheet  J — upon  examining  sheet 
7,  there  was  a  part  which,  in  my  weak  judgment, 
appeared  of  a  dangerous  tendency ;  I,  therefore, 
immediately  concluded  in  my  mind  not  to  pro 
ceed  any  further.  Accordingly,  in  determining 
not  to  proceed  in  the  work,  I  wrote  a  short  note 
to  Mr.  Paine,  about  2  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
determining  to  send  the  letter  with  the  copy  the 
following  morning.  I  felt  a  degree  of  reluctance 
and  unpleasantness  in  my  own  mind,  from  the 
circumstance  of  Mr.  Paine's  civilities,  that  I  had 
received,  as  a  gentleman  and  my  employer ;  and 
I  was  fearful  I  should  not  have  courage  in  the 
morning  to  deliver  up  his  copy  ;  but  a  circum 
stance  occurred  in  the  course  of  the  day  that  en 
abled  me  to  do  jit  with  pleasure  to  myself. 


168  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

Q.  Was  Mr.  Paine  present  when  that  circum 
stance  happened  ? 

A.  He  was — and  as  it  may  exculpate  me,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  court,  from  a  charge  Mr.  Paine 
thought  proper  to  enter,  in  his  appendix,  against 
me  as  a  printer,  I  should  esteem  it  as  a  favour  of 
the  court  if  they  will  suffer  me  to  mention  the 
circumstance. 

Court.     Certainly. 

A.  That  very  day  at  six  o'clock  Mr.  Paine 
called  upon  me, 

Q.  What  day  was  that  ? 

A.  I  have  a  copy  of  my  letter  dated  1 7th  of  Ja 
nuary,^)  so  he  must  have  called  upon  me  on 
the  16th;  Mr.  Paine  called  upon  me,  and,  which 
was  unusual  with  him,  he  was  rather  intoxicated 


(w)  SIR,  January  17,  1792. 

I  am  much  obliged  by  the  favour  of  your  printing,  and 
should  have  esteemed  myself  happy  in  the  expectation  of  your 
future  interest  and  friendship  ;  but  there  appear  so  many  ob 
servations  in  the  sheet  (I)  directly  personal  against  the  king 
and  government,  that  I  feel  myself  under  the  necessity  of  re 
questing  you  will  get  the  remaining  sheets  printed  at  another 
office.  Sheet  (H)  I  am  willing  to  finish,  but  no  farther  on  any 
account.  I  beg,  therefore,  sir,  to  inclose  the  remaining  part 
ef  the  copy  ; 

And  am,  sir, 

Your  obliged  humble  servant, 

T.  CHAPMAN, 
T.  Paine,  Esq, 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE,  169 

with  liquor ;  he  had  been  dining  with  Mr.  John 
son,  I  believe,  in  St.  Paul's  Church  yard,  accord 
ing  to  his  own  account ;  being  intoxicated,  he 
introduced  his  favourite  topic  and  subject,  upon 
which  we  unfortunately  differed,  namely  reli 
gion-)  a  favourite  topic  with  him  when  he  is  in 
toxicated.  I  am  sorry  to  mention  the  circum 
stance,  only  as  it  may  justify  me  in  the  eyes  of 
the  public,  as  his  false  insinuation  in  his  Appendix 
respecting  his  copy  has  done  me  material  injury 
in  my  profession.  The  subject  of  debate  ran  high, 
and  Mr.  Paine  proceeded  in  his  argument,  till  ifc 
came  at  length  to  personal  abuse  both  to  myself 
and  Mrs.  Chapman.  An  observation  wras  made 
late  in  the  evening  (I  believe  near  10  o'clock)  at 
which  Mr.  Paine  was  particularly  offended,  and 
rising  up,  in  a  great  passion,  he  declared  he  had 
not  been  so  personally  affronted  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  life. 

Mr.  Erskine.  The  information  charges  no  ex 
trinsic  matter. 

Lord  Kenyon.  It  appears  at  present  important. 

Mr.  Erskine.  I  cannot  admit  that  letter,  as  I 
have  no  reason  to  believe  the  existence  of  it. 

Mr,  Solicitor  General.  The  circumstances  are 
proper  to  be  explained  by  him  to  vindicate  him 
self. 

Witness.  Mr.  Paine  rose  up  in  a  great  passion, 
declaring  as  I  wras  a  dissenter,  he  had  a  very  bad 
w 


170  ^FE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 


opinion  of  dissenters  in  general,  believing  them 
all  to  be  a  pack  of  hypocrites,  and  he  should 
deal  with  them  accordingly,  and  desired  me  to 
deliver  up  his  accounts  the  next  morning  $  which 
I  did,  and  felt  a  degree  of  pleasure  at  the  cir 
cumstance.  I  delivered  a  letter  enclosing  the 
whole  of  his  copy—  he  called  upon  me  immedi 
ately,  and  made  many  apologies  for  what  he 
had  said,  observing  it  was  the  effect  of  the  liquor, 
and  hoped  I  would  pass  it  over,  and  proceed 
in  the  work  ;  but  I  had  determined  I  would 
not. 

Q.  Did  you  explain  to  Mr.  Paine  your  reasons 
why  you  would  not  ? 

A.  I  did  Sir  ;  my  letter  told  him. 

Court.  Did  you  explain  the  ground  why  you 
would  not  proceed  with  the  work  ? 

A.  I  did. 

Mr.  Solicitor  General.  You  have  told  us  that 
Mr.  Paine  was  your  employer  to  print  so  far  as 
you  did  print. 

A.  Yes. 

Q.  Did  you  ever  make  any  offer  to  any  body^ 
to  buy  the  copy  of  that  you  call  the  Second  Part 
of  the  Rights  of  Man  ? 

A.  I  did. 

Q.  To  whom? 

A.  To  Mr.  Paine, 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  171 

Q.  When  you  made  those  offers,  did  Mr. 
Paine  accept,  or  refuse,  or  how  treat  them  £ 

A.  I  made  three  separate  offers  in  the  differ 
ent  stages  of  the  work  :  The  first,  I  believe,  was 
100  guineas;  the  second,  500  :  the  last,  1000. 

Q.  To  those  offers  what  did  Mr.  Paine  an 
swer  ? 

A.  Mr.  Paine,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection, 
answered,  as  it  was*  his  intention  to  publish  a 
small  edition  of  the  work,  he  wished  to  reserve 
it  in  his  own  hands." 

Those  who  personally  knew  Paine,  will  fully 
credit  Chapman's  very  accurate  representation 
of  his  abuse  of  Mrs.  Chapman,  and  of  his  hav 
ing  a  "  very  bad  opinion  of  dissenters  in  general, 
believing  them  all  to  be  a  pack  of  hypocrites ;" 
both  being  exactly  in  character,  and  a  pack  of 
hijprocrites  precisely  his  words  upon  all  occa 
sions,  when  inveighing,  as  was  his  custom,  against 
religion.  To  the  sex,  whether  animated  with 
liquor,  or  in  his  temperate  moments  depressed 
•with  reflection,  he  paid  no  sort  of  deference.  He 
was  at  all  times  at  war  with  man  and  woman, 
heaven  and  earth. 

The  attorney-general  now  outlawed  him,  a 
measure  of  which  he  afterwards  felt  the  incon 
venience. 

The  revolutionary  ferment  in  England  increas 
ed.  The  issue  of  Paine's  trial  W7as  far  from  tran- 


172  LIFE    OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

quillizing  the  passions.  The  seed  of  rebellion 
had  been  sown,  and  nothing  seemed  capable  of 
stopping  its  growth.  Projects  of  parliamentary 
reform  were  vehemently  pressed  upon  parliament, 
as  if  at  a  crisis  threatening  universal  commotion, 
visionary  schemes  of  imaginary  good  could  be 
either  coolly  entertained  or  safely  carried  into 
effect.  At  a  period  like  this,  parliamentary  re 
form  would  have  been  fatal.  Partial  success 
would  have  invited  more  desperate  efforts  at  a 
total  overthrow  of  the  government  :  nothing 
could  have  preserved  it.  The  atrocious  conven 
tion,  meditating  the  murder  of  Louis,  had  passed 
their  decree  of  the  19th  of  November,  1792, 
exciting  the  people  of  Europe  to  insurrection 
against  their  governments,  and  promising  "  as 
sistance  and  fraternity"  Upon  the  publication 
of  this  infamous  decree,  parliament,  which  wras 
to  have  met  on  the  third  day  of  the  following 
January,  was  convened  by  proclamation  on  the 
1 3th  of  the  preceding  December.  What,  under 
all  these  circumstances,  could  have  saved  the  na 
tion  from  all  the  horrours  of  revolution,  but  war  ? 
The  remedy  was  indeed  an  evil,  but  it  was  one 
infinitely  less  than  that  with  which  it  was  me 
naced  by  the  French  republick  and  by  Paine ; 
co-operating  writh  the  thoughtless  or  mistaken 
people  of  England.  Early  in  January,  1793, 
JLquis  was  decapitated.  On  the  23d  of  the  same 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE*  173 

month,  his  minister,  Chauvelin,  resident  in  Lon 
don,  was  ordered  by  the  British  government  to 
quit  the  kingdom,  and  on  the  first  of  the  following 
month,  the  "  French  Republick"  declared  war 
against  Great  Britain. 

Upon  the  Trial  of  Louis  the  XVI,  Paine,  who 
had  been  employed  as  a  copier  of  papers  to  the 
committee   of  foreign   affairs,  and  dismissed  by 
congress  for  perjury,,  sat  in  judgment!    He  had 
voted  in  the  convention  for  the  trial  of  the  king, 
but,  upon  his  trial,  he  was  in  favour  of  imprison 
ing  him  during  the  war,  and  of  transporting  him 
afterwards.     His  mild  nature  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  spilling  the  king's  blood  !  Yes,  the  *"" 
man  who  had  endeavoured  to  raise  revolt  in  Eng 
land,  that  the  land  might  be  covered  with  human 
gore,  advanced  pretensions  to  the  attributes  of 
humanity  !    "  It  has  already  been  proposed,"  he 
observes  in  his  speech  in  the  convention,  "  to 
abolish  the   punishment  of  death,  and  it  is  with 
infinite  satisfaction  that  I  recollect  the  humane  and 
excellent  oration  pronounced  by  Robespierre  on 
the  subject,  in  the  constituent  assembly."     The  ^ 
whole  of  his  speech  is  hypocritical,  fawning,  time 
serving,  and  pussillanimous.     He  felt  that  in  the 
terrible  republic^  whose  course  and  conduct  he 
had  recommended  to  England,  there  was  neither 
freedom  nor  safety.     If  the  king  was  guilty  of 
the  charges  which  murderous  and  sacrilegious 


174  IJFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

faction  had  conjured  tip  against  him,  death  was 
<*  the  punishment  of  his  crimes,  but  as  Paine,  from 
the  context  of  his  dastardly  speech,  evidently 
considered  him  innocent,  imprisonment  during 
the  war,  and  banishment  afterwards,  proposed 
by  him,  were  atrocious  injustice. 

While  the  trial  of  the  king  was  going  on,  the 
committee  of  the  convention,  of  which  Paine  had 
the  honour  of  being  a  member,  were  framing  the 
new  constitution  of  1793.  In  the  short  space  of 
two  or  three  years,  the  Assembly  of  the  Notables, 
the  States-General,  and  the  National  Assembly, 
with  its  declaration  of  rights,  which  Paine  had 
held  out  to  the  people  of  England  as  worthy  of 
their  imitation,  had  all,  with  every  thing  else, 
been  overthrown.  All  those  assemblies  were  now 
superceded  by  a  convention,  whose  business,  be 
sides  despatching  the  king,  and  sounding  some 
notes  of  dreadful  preparation,  w7as  to  make  ano 
ther  constitution.  This  prodigy  of  human  intel 
lect,  or  rather,  this  sediment  of  ever-renewed  in 
toxication,  was  presented  to  the  convention  on 
the  15th  of  February,  1793.  In  this  dispropor- 
tioned  thing,  this  dream  of  well-meaning  fana- 
ticks,  or  deliberate  act  of  cool  dilapidators,  uni 
versal  suffrage  was  laid  down  to  perfection. 
The  executive  power  was  vested  in  an  executive 
council,  the  members  of  which  were  to  be  elected 
by  the  sanguinary  rabble  of  France,  whose  hands 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE*  175 

were  already  clotted  with  human  blood.      A 
power  which,  if  it  be  any  where  or  at  any  time 
usefully  practicable,  requires  the  utmost  tranquil 
lity  and  the  most  unimpassioned  judgment,  was 
to  be  exercised  by  a  national  mob  in  the  highest 
state  of  frenzy.     Is  the  voice  of  such  men  as  the 
convention  and  its  committee  were  composed  of 
ever  to  be  listened  to  ?     They  seem  to  have  paid 
no  attention  to  the  state  of  France.     Their  sys 
tem  was  not  at  all  adapted  to  the  nature  and  con 
dition  of  the  subject  on  whom  it  was  to  operate. 
What  could  be  expected  but  that  which  followed? 
In  March,   the  next  month,  the  new  constitution 
of  Condorcet,  Paine,  and  the  rest  of  the  com 
mittee,  was  in  effect  nearly  annihilated.     The 
convention,  to  which  supreme  and  almost  exclu 
sive  power  had  been  unaccountably  left,  awed 
as  it  was  by  the  jacobins  in  and  out  of  it,  organi 
zed,  in  March,  1793,  the  revolutionary  tribunal, 
with  its  publick  accuser  and  its   two  assistants. 
This  court,  consisting  of  six  judges,  or  rather  of 
six  assassins,  having  all  France  within  its  func 
tions  and  subject  to  its  power,  summarily  pro 
nounced  sentence  without  appeal,  and  sent  its 
victims  forthwith  to  execution.     From  its  terrible 
operations  there  was  no  escape.     Suspicion  was 
sufficient  cause  of  death.     Nor  was  a  ferocious 
countenance  of  any  advantage  to  its  possessor, 


176  LIFE  OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

and  a  mild  one,  indicating  all  possible  goodness, 
was  fatal. 

In  the  following  month,  April,  1793,  the  pow 
ers  of  another  engine  of  horrour,  the  committee 
of  publick  safety,  were  so  amplified  as  to  com 
plete  the  destruction  of  the  executive  council. 
This  again  was  followed  in  May  by  a  declaration, 
that  the  "  republick  is  one  and  indivisible."  In 
June,  1793,  the  new  constitution  of  Condorcet, 
Paine,  &c.  was  formally  destroyed,  and  another 
new  constitution,  consisting  of  a  hundred  and 
twenty-four  articles,  more  suited,  if  possible,  to 
jacobin  tyranny,  was  as  formally  adopted  by  the 
convention.  The  queen  was  now  executed,  and 
this  act  of  unmanly  revenge  was  followed,  in 
October,  1793,  by  the  murder  of  Brissot  and  his 
colleagues.  In  December,  1793,  Paine  himself, 
who  had  laboured  hard  to  produce  a  similar  state 
of  things  in  England,  was  thrown  into  prison  by 
the  committee  of  safety  ! 

"  This  even-handed  justice 

Commends  the  ingredients  of  our  poison'd  chalice 
To  our  own  lips." 

He  had  just  finished,  when  arrested,   the  first 

£  part  of  his  Age  of  Reason  ;(#)  but  considering 

the  work  as  unsafe  in  the  hands  of  the  represen* 

(x}  Preface  to  Age  of  Reason,  part  2. 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  177 

tatives  of  a  free  people,  he  called  on  Mr.  Barlow,  j 
author  of  the  Columbiad,  in  his  way  to  prison, 
and  left  it  with  him. 

It  has  been  intimated  to  me,  by  a  gentleman 
who  has  favoured  me  with  his  correspondence  on 
the  subject  of  this  work,  whose  name  I  am  not 
at  liberty  to  mention,  that  Paine's  deistical  pro 
ductions  do  not  form*  in  him  a  distijictive  charac 
ter,  so  many  able  men  of  different  ages  and  na 
tions  having  written  on  the  same  side  of  the  sub 
ject  ;  and  therefore,  perhaps  he  would  infer,  it 
would  be  superfluous,  if  not  impertinent,  to  say 
one  word  upon  it  in  writing  his  life. 

With  becoming  deference  I  must,  however, 
say,  that  indistinctiveness  of  character,  or  the 
sameness  of  his  opinions  with  the  opinions  of 
his  deistical  predecessors,  even  if  granted,  could 
form  no  solid  objection  to  a  liberal  notice  of  his 
Age  of  Reason.  How  could  I  account,  in  wri 
ting  his  life,  for  so  large  a  chasm  as  an  omission 
of  it  would  make  ? 

But  his  deistical  writings  do  in  my  judgment 
help  to  make  out,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that, 
alone,  they  constitute,  a  distinctive  character. 
As  a  political  writer,  celebrated  as  he  has  been 
by  the  illiterate  for  originality,  he  was  original  in 
nothing  but  intention.  In  the  United  States,  or 
rather  in  the  colonies  and  during  the  war  for  in 
dependence,  he  was  a  very  subordinate  retailer 

x 


178  LIFE  OF  THOMAS   PAINE. 

of  the  works  of  the  great  men  of  England.  As 
a  cleistical  controversialist,  the  same  observation 
applies,  taking  in  with  some  learned  men  of 
England,  Voltaire,  and  others  of  different  na 
tions.  Here  too  he  had  nothing  original  but  in 
tention.  His  Age  of  Reason  is  an  acrimonious 
attack,  not  011  priestcraft,  nor  on  the  abuses  of 
religion,  nor  on  the  irregularities  of  its  ministers, 
but  on  religion  itself.  In  this  he  was  not  origi 
nal  ;  in  this  he  had  been  preceded  by  distinguish 
ed  statesmen,  "profound  philosophers,  and  grave 
historians;  by  Bolingbroke,  by  Hume,  and  by 
others,  to  whose  works  we  may  turn  as  curious 
speculations ;  as  specimens  of  admirable  reason 
ing,  upon  premises  however  false.  Nor  wras  he 
original  in  his  impertinent  witticisms,  his  shock 
ing  indecencies,  his  indecorous  scoffs.  In  these, 
Voltaire  had  gone  before  and  surpassed  him.  A 
deist — even  one  indeed  who  outstrips  a  deist  and 
sneeringly  and  contemptuously  views  him  as  a 
religious  fanatick ;  an  atheist,  if  such  a  being- 
exists,  who  thinks  himself  nothing,  that  he  came 
from  nothing,  that  he  is  accountable  to  nothing, 
and  that  there  is  nothing  superiour  to  himself  ; 
even  he,  if  he  has  read  Hume  on  miracles,  can 
not  peruse  the  wretched  scurrillity  of  Paine. 

The  intention  of  Paine,  and  the  intention  only? 
both  in  politicks  and  religion,  constitutes  a  cha 
racter  entirely  original.  His  intention  was  more 


LIFE  OF  THOMAS  PAINE,  179 

completely  destructive  than  that  of  any  other 
-author  that  perhaps  ever  lived.  While  conspiring 
to  subvert  all  government,  he  meditated  the  over 
throw  of  all  religion.  Whilst  planning  devasta 
tion  and  blood  on  earth,  he  wus  hatching  rebel 
lion  against  heaven.  With  him,  the  mortal  and 
the  immortal  parts  were  to  sink  together  in  the 
dust.  With  him,  ruin  was  to  be  complete.  In 
this  he  was  original ;  in  this  he  had  a  distinctive- 
ness  of  character.  Bolingbroke  was.no  anarch 
ist  in  government  :  Hume  was—fa*  &  very  solid 
and  durable  one  ;  and  Voltaire,  if  he  was  no,t  a 
monarchist,  affected  to  adore  the  Prussian  mon 
arch.  But  in  hypocrisy,  for  Paine  was  a  hypo- 
crite,  he  was  not  original. 

In  the  preface (y)  to  the  first  part  of  his  Age 
of  Reason,  he  says  : — "  It  has  been  my  intention, 
for  several  years,  to  publish  my  thoughts  upon 
religion."  The  Age  of  Reason  sufficiently  tells 
us  what  his  thoughts  were.  In  the  same  pre 
face,^)  he  adds : — "  Soon  after  I  published  the 
pamphlet,  COMMON  SENSE,  in  America,  I  saw 
the  exceeding  probability  that  a  re-volution  in  the 
system  of  government,  would  be  followed  by  a 
revolution  in  the  system  of  religion." 


(y)  Page  7,  New-York,  1795. 
Jv.r;  Pafre  9, 


180  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

AH  was  to  be  overthrown.  The  world  was  to 
be  undone. 

The  word  system,  affords  no  refuge  even  for  a 
quibble  in  favour  of  Paine.  He  was  not  attack 
ing  the  church  of  England  as  established  by  law  j 
he  was  not  assailing  this  or  that  church,  but 
the  subject  of  all  churches.  Those  amongst  us 
who  may  be  opposed  to  the  church  of  England, 
can  draw  from  the  word  system  no  apology  for 
Paine,  if  they  consider  to  whom  the  Age  of 
Reason  is  dedicated. 

We  have  no  one  church  established  by  law  in 
preference  to  another.  All  our  churches  are,  thank 
God,  under  the  protection  of  the  law,  but  there 
is  no  legal  preeminence  given  to  any  one  of  the 
numerous  sects  which  flourish  amongst  us.  We, 
therefore,  have  no  system,  in  the  sense  which 
Paine's  friends  may  according  to  circumstances 
wish  to  be  understood.  And  yet  it  is  dedicated 
to  us, — he  «  puts  it  under  our  protection," — he 
sent  amongst  us  an  edition  of  several  thousand 
copies,  and  they  were  spread  from  one  end  of  the 
union  to  the  other  with  an  alacrity  which  he  must 
Jiave  commended.  What  then  was  his  Abject 
here?  The  same  as  it  was  every  where  :  licen- 
riousness— - confusion — an  abolition  of  the  forms 
of  religion — annihilation  of  religion  itself — a  let 
ting  "  loose  of  reason,"  as  Mr.  Jefferson  terms 
it,  which,  in  good  English,  means  madness— *a 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  181 

loss  of  memory — a  loss  of  Judgment — a  forget- 
fulness  of  obligations  to  God  and  man — a  state  of 
society  more  savage,  more  furious,  more  crimin 
al,  by  having  been  civilized,  than  the  primitive 
condition  of  the  Choctaws.  Surely  where  the 
sweets  of  religion  are  most  sweet,  there  was  no 
necessity  for  a  work  even  against  a  system  of  re 
ligion.  Every  man  amongst  us  can  worship  God, 
without  pains  or  disabilities,  according  to  the  dic 
tates  of  his  conscience.  In  no  nation  is  religion 
more  free.  In  no  condition  of  man,  feeling,  be 
nevolent,  thinking,  and  good,  can  a  more  per 
fect  state  of  religious  freedom  exist.  And  yet 
even  here  it  was  to  be  attacked ;  even  here,  all 
the  holds  of  the  state,  and  the  hopes  of  individu 
als,  were  to  be  destroyed. 

Soon  after  the  publication  of  Common  Sense 
in  America,  and,  by  fair  inference,  when  he 
wrote  Common  Sense,  he  saw  that  a  revolution 
in  government  would  be  followed  by  a  revolution 
in  religion;  such  a  revolution  as  he  advocates;  a 
destructio?i  of  religio?i :  but  he  intended  this  des 
perate  effort  as  the  "  last  offering  he  would  make  ' 
to  his  fellow  citizens  of  all  nations."(«)  In  the 
mean  while  the  well  masked  dissimulator  pretend 
ed  to  be  a  pious  Christian.  This  he  would  de- 


•fa)  Preface  to  the  Age  of  Reason,  Part  First. 


182  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

nominate  State  Craft,  which,  he  told  the  people 
of  England  in  his  Rights  of  Man,  cannot  exist 
in  America ! 

"  For  myself,  he  observes,  I  fully  and  conscien 
tiously  believe  that  it  is  the  will  of  the  Almighty 
that  there  should  be  a  diversity  of  religious  opin 
ions  amongst  us  :  it  affords  a  larger  field  for  our 
Christian  kindness."  Here  he  is  a  Christian,  full 
of  Christian  kindness  !  And  yet  he  had  decided 
in  favour  of  a  *'  revolution  in  religion,"  and  re 
solved  to  unite  his  efforts  to  the  efforts  of  conge 
nial  men,  to  effect  it,  but  would  reserve  the  act 
for  one  of  the  last  of  his  life. 

"  Should  Howe  be  now  expelled,  I  wish,  with 
all  the  devotion  of  a  Christian,  that  the  names  of 
whig  and  tory  may  never  more  be  mentioned."^) 

This  he  wrote  a  year  after  the  publication  of 
Common  Sense.  "  Soon  after  I  had  published 
Common  Sense,  I  saw  that  a  revolution  in  gov 
ernment  would  be  followed  by  a  revolution  in  re- 
,,. '  ligion."  Was  he  not  a  hypocrite?  Was  he  not 
an  impostor  ? 

The  same  dissimulation,  though  not  in  the 
same  degree,  is  continued  in  the  Rights  of  Man. 
He  seems  to  have  unmasked  himself  as  he  saw  the 
world  ripening  for  his  purposes.  Even  after  the 


Crisis,  Number  I. 


LIFE  OF  THOMAS  PAINE.  185 

French  revolutionists  had  plundered  the  churches 
and  sent  their  clergy  to  the  lamp  post,  he  was 
a  Christian,  yet  not  quite  so  full  of  "  Christian 
kindness."  But  he  had  to  deal  with  the  English 
people,  with  whom  a  revolution  in  government 
was  to  precede  a  revolution  in  religion.  Perdi 
tion  was  to  develope  itself  by  degrees. 

"  Governments,  thus  established,  he  says,  lasC 
as  long  as  the  power  to  support  them  lasts ;  but 
that  they  might  avail  themselves  of  every  engine 
in  their  favour,  they  united  fraud  to  force,  and 
set  up  an  idol  which  they  called  divine  rights^ 
and  which  in  contradistinction  to  the  founder  of 
the  Christian  religion,  twisted  itself  afterwards  in 
to  an  idol  of  another  shape."  (c) 

When  he  wrote  this  passage,  in  which  he  af 
fects  to  be  a  disciple  of  Christ,  whose  maxims  he 
admires,  he  had  resolved  to  defer  his  "  last  work" 
no  longer  ;  he  had  decided  to  write,  and  proba 
bly  had  commenced,  the  Age  of  Reason.  He 
tells  us  so  himself  in  another  place. 

"  I  have  mentioned,  in  the  former  part  of  the 
Age  of  Reason,  that  it  had  long  been  my  inten 
tion  to  publish  my  thoughts  upon  religion ;  but 
that  I  originally  reserved  it  to  a  later  period  in 
life,  intending  it  to  be  the  last  work  I  should  un* 


(c)  Rights  »,f  Man,  Part  I, 


184  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

dertake.     The  circumstances,    however,  which 
existed  in  France,  in  the  latter  end  of  the  year 

1790,  DETERMINED  ME  TO  DELAY  IT  NO  LONGER."(rf) 

The  Rights  of  Man,  part  first,  was  published  in 
London  in  1791,  a  year  after  the  "  circumstances 
which  existed  in  France  had  determined  him  to 
delay  no  longer,"  his  attack  on  religion  !  And 
yet  in  the  Rights  of  Man  he  passes  himself  off 
for  a  Christian !  But  as  he  advanced  in  com 
posing  the  work,  he  cast  off  the  trammels  of  hy 
pocrisy.  The  National  Assembly  of  France, 
that  first  cause  of  the  national  wreck  which  fol 
lowed,  having  displeased  him  in  an  article  of  its 
declaration  of  rights,  he  comments,  at  the  close 
of  his  work,  undisguisedly  and  severely  upon 
it. 

Article  "  X.  No  man  ought  to  be  molested  on 
account  of  his  opinions,  not  even  of  his  religious 
opinions,  provided  his  avowal  of  them  does  not 
disturb  the  publick  order  established  by  law"(e) 

Paine  thinks,  and  so  he  expresses  himself,  that 
the  proviso  is  an  outrage  on  the  rights  of  man 
almost  as  great  as  any  ever  committed  even  by 
the  British  government !  Society,  he  is  clearly 


(</)  Preface   to  the   Age  of  Reason,  part  2,  page  1,  New- 
York,  1796. 

(e)  Declaration  of  Rights  of  the  National  Assembly, 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  185 

of  opinion,  has  nothing  to  do  with  doctrines, 
whether  they  disturb  its  tranquillity  or  not ! 

4 '  It  is  questioned,  he  says,  by  some  very  good 
people  in  France,  as  well  as  in  other  countries, 
whether  the  tenth  article  sufficiently  guarantees 
the  right  it  is  intended  to  accord  with.  Besides 
which,  it  takes  off  from  the  divine  dignity  of  re 
ligion,  and  weakens  its  operative  force  upon  the 
mind,  to  make  it  a  subject  of  human  laws."(/) 

Now  what  is  it  in  the  article  that  takes  off  front 
the  divine  dignity  of  religion?"  That  which 
allows  all  freedom  in  religious  opinions  but  such 
as  disturbs  the  publicls  order  establish,  d  by 
law !  According  to  Paine,  therefore,  divine 
dignity  in  religion  consists  in  disturbing  the  pub- 
lick  peace- 1 

In  this  he  goes,  I  think,  but  I  am  not  quite 
sure,  further  than  Mr.  Jefferson.  "  The  legiti 
mate  powers  of  government  extend  to  such  acts 
only  as  are  injurious  to  others.  But  it  does  me 
no  injury  for  my  neighbour  to  say  [that]  there 
are  twenty  Gods  or  no  God.(V)  It  neither  picks 
my  pocket  nor  breaks  my 


(/)  Rights  of  Man,   part  1,  p.  69,  Phil.  ed.  1797. 

(#•)  Mr.  Jefferson  writes  "  lengthy"    for  long.     Notes,   p. 
348,  New  Appendix. 

(/j)  Notes  on  Virginia,  p.  235,  New-York, 
Y 


186  LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

Mr.  Jefferson  admits,  that  the  legitimate  powers 
of  government  extend  to  such  acts  as  are  inju 
rious  to  others ;  yet  that  his  neighbour's  decla 
ration,  that  there  is  no  God,  may  neither  pick 
his  pocket  nor  break  his  leg.  But  suppose  that 
the  denial  of  God  should  so  harden  his  neigh 
bour's  heart  and  vitiate  his  mind  as  to  induce  him 
to  break  the  sage's  leg,  or  to  pick  his  pocket, 
which  I  think  very  likely,  it  would  then  follow, 
from  his  own  doctrine,  that  as  picking  pockets 
and  breaking  legs  are  injurious  acts,  they  may 
be  legitinmtely  punished.  If  I  am  right  in  thus 
construing  the  late  president's  meaning,  he  stops 
short  of  Paine,  who  declares,  that  to  disturb  the 
publick  order  established  by  law,  is  an  essential 
part  of  the  "  divine  dignity  of  religion." 

The  human  mind  is  apt  to  run  to  extreme s» 
From  doubting  the  divinity  of  the  Christian  reli 
gion,  it  descends  to  deism,  and  it  would  be  sur 
prising  if,  in  sinking,  the  deist  stopped  short  of 
atheism.  In  deism,  Paine  was,  in  all  probability, 
a  hypocrite.  Generally,  he  expressed  detestation 
of  atheism,  and  yet  he  has  uttered  opinions  fav- 
ourable  to  it.  He  believes,  he  asserts  in  his  Age  of 
Reason,  in  one  God,  but  it  is  probable  that  he  be 
lieved  in  nothing  superiour  to  matter.  In  con 
versation  with  Mrs.  Palmer,  widow  of  the  deist- 
ical  haranguer,  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Carver,  of 
this  city,  from  whom  I  have  the  fact,  he  let  out 


LIFE    OF  THOMAS   PAINE.  187 

his  materialism.  Stewart,  "  the  traveller,"  an 
insane  man,  had  published  a  pamphlet,  which 
he  called  Opus  Maximum,  denying  the  existence 
of  every  thing  but  matter.  Referring  to  it,  Mrs. 
Palmer  remarked  : — "  Stewart's  doctrine,  Mr. 
Paine,  may  be  correct."  "  It  is  well  enough, 
replied  Paine,  to  say  nothing  about  it ;  the  time 
is  not  yet  come  /"  Death  then  was  with  him,  as 
well  as  with  the  French  convention,  eternal 
sleep.  To  this  horrid  sentence,  therefore,  this 
impious  declaration,  wrapping  man  in  gloom 
here,  robbing  him  of  his  brightest  hopes  of 
hereafter,  Paine  wrote  nothing  in  opposition. 
Robespierre,  however,  reversed  the  atheistical  *- 
decree  of  the  convention.  Death,  he  said,  is  not 
eternal  sleep.  The  French  people,  he  caused  to 
be  proclaimed,  believe  in  the  Supreme  Being, 
and  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Paine  now 
published  the  first  part  of  his  Age  of  Reason.  He 
too  believed,  he  affirmed,  in  one  God,  but,  to 
use  his  own  language,  the  "  time  had  not  yet 
come'9  for  a  naked  expression  of  his  opinion. 
As  to  the  scriptures,  he  confesses  that  he  had  not 
read  them.  How  then,  as  a  reasonable  man, 
could  he  write  against  them  ?  He  had  early 
thought  that  governments  could  not  be  subverted, 
that  havock  could  not  be  commenced,  that  mi 
sery  could  not  be  complete,  without  discarding 
religion,  and  this  seems  to  have  been  cause 


188  LIFE   OF   THOMAS  PAINE. 

enough  with  him,  without  reading,  without  re 
flection,  to  commence  the  work. 

He  suffered  eleven  months  imprisonment  in 
France  ;  from  December,  1793,  to  the  4th  of  No 
vember,  1794.  In  one  placeQ  he  ascribes  his 
escape  from  the  guillotine  to  a  fever  with  which 
he  was  aiilicted  ;  in  another,  to  Providence.(y) 
v  The  fever  was  the  effect  of  intemperance.  A 
medical  gentleman  of  great  eminence,  who  ren 
dered  him  professional  service  in  France,  tells 
me  that  his  body  was  in  a  state  of  putrefaction, 
probably  occasioned  by  drinking  brandy,  and  that, 
so  offensive  was  the  stench  which  issued  from 
it,  he  could  hardly  be  approached.  It  does  not, 
however,  appear,  that  he  constantly  drank  to 
excess  before  he  left  America,  in  1787:  he  was 
poor.  His  habitual  drunkenness  seems  to  have 
commenced  with  the  delirium  of  the  French  re 
volution.  The  practice  gained  upon  him  in  Lon 
don.  "  Reason  had  been  let  loose."  Wiklness 
naturally  followed.  A  commotion  of  thoughts  is 
necessarily  succeeded  by  a  commotion  in  action. 
In  France,  after  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the 
Convention,  by  whose  committee  he  was  im- 


(z)  Letter  to  general  Washington. 

(y)  Letters  written  at  Washington,   addressed  to  the  citi 
zens  of  the  United  States. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  189 

mured,  his  intemperance  seems  to  have  increased 
with  the  increase  of  French  violence.  Some 
gentlemen  have  ascribed  it  to  an  imputed  neglect 
on  the  part  of  general  Washington  during  his  im 
prisonment.  Was  Paine  then  so  weak  ?  But 
they  overlook  dates.  The  putrescent  state  of  his 
body  while  in  prison,  was  brought  on  by  drink 
ing  before  his  imprisonment.  His  habits  were 
sordid,  his  thirst  for  liquor  had  been  great,  and 
to  quench  it,  he  had  associated  with  the  meanest 
company  in  Paris  for  months  before  his  incarce 
ration. 

After  his  liberation,  he  found  an  asylum  in  the 
hospitable  house  of  Mr.  Munroe,  our  minister. 
The  near  approach  of  death,  for  he  expected 
every  moment  to  die,  either  by  the  guillotine  or 
by  natural  dissolution,  neither  frightened  nor  dis 
suaded  him  from  immoderate  drinking.  Mr. 
Munroe  kept  him  in  his  house  eighteen  months. 
At  first,  he  drank  as  he  pleased,  and  therefore  to 
excess.  But  for  his  own  good,  as  well  as  for  the 
reputation  of  the  mission,  the  minister  found  it 
necessary  to  stint  him.  Yet  what  he  could  not 
get  in  the  house,  he  got  out  of  it.  A  drunkard 
will  have  liquor.  Intemperance  and  imprison 
ment  laid  wraste  his  mind,  such  as  it  had  been. 

During  his  imprisonment,  an  extraordinary  re 
volution  happened.  The  atrocious  Robespierre 
and  his  accomplices  had  expiated  at  the  guilbtine 


190  LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

their  proscriptions  and  massacres.  Paine,  on  his 
release  from  his  dungeon,  was  invited  to  resume 
his  seat  in  the  convention. 

As  the  new  faction  had  triumphed  over  the 
old,  a  new  paper  constitution  was  now  to  be  made. 
Paine  and  Co.'s  constitution  of  1793  was  in 
formally  abolished  a  month  after  it  was  presented. 
The  two  committees  of  revolution  and  safety, 
which  had  grown  out  of  that  constitution,  were 
now  to  be  destroyed. 

In  April,  1 795,  a  committee  of  eleven  was  ap 
pointed  for  the  purpose  of  organizing  a  fresh  con 
stitution,  which  was  reported  on  the  23d  of  the 
following  June  by  Boissy  D'Anglas.  This  was 
the  constitution  of  elders  and  youngsters ;  a  coun 
cil  of  five  hundred,  a  council  of  ancients,  and  an 
executive  directory  of  five.  It  formally  abolishes 
the  convention  ;  it  artfully  rejects  universal  suf 
frage  ;  it  establishes  electoral  assemblies  between 
the  people  and  the  government ;  it  permits  a  citi* 
zen  of  France,  if  he  has  paid  direct  taxes,  fought 
a  campaign,  and  possesses  several  other  qualifica 
tions,  to  vote  for  electors.  The  directory  was  to 
be  chosen  after  Mr.  Jefferson's  manner ;  by  the 
legislature,  but  not,  I  believe,  on  the  suggestion  of 
the  directory  itself. 

On  the  7th  of  July,  the  convention  granted  per« 
mission  to  Paine  to  make  a  speech  against  the  con 
stitution  of  Boissy  D'Anglas. 


LIFE   OP  THOMAS  PAINE.  191 

This  he  tremblingly  begins  with  adverting  to 
his  imprisonment,  and  to  the  fever  with  which  he 
had  been  afflicted.  He  states  that  he  was  "  pro 
scribed  in  England  for  vindicating  the  French  re 
volution,"  and  that  he  had  been  cast  into  prison 
in  France  for  doing  the  same  thing.  He  then 
commences  his  objections  to  the  constitution  as  a 
Virginia  slave  would  remonstrate  against  the  ty 
ranny  and  cruelty  of  his  master.  On  the  subject 
of  universal  suffrage,  he  is,  however,  silent.  As 
the  operation  of  that  principle  in  his  own  consti 
tution  had  brought  upon  him  eleven  months'  du 
resse,  he  seems  not  to  have  been  very  anxious 
about  it.  To  the  electoral  assemblies,  intervened 
between  those  who  were  allowed  to  vote,  and  the 
government,  he  makes  no  objection.  If  brandy 
had  not  mellowed  his  understanding,  confinement 
seems  to  have  mitigated  his  zeal.  His  objections, 
fearfully  urged,  are  two.  He  rejects  the  usual 
distinction  between  direct  and  indirect  taxation, 
which  is  in  fact  a  nominal  one,  and  is  of  opinion, 
that  the  citizen  who  pays  any  sort  of  taxes,  should 
be  allowed  to  vote  for  the  electors,  who  wrere  to 
choose  the  council,  older  and  younger.  As  to  the 
service  of  a  campaign  in  the  army,  wThich  was  a 
prerequisite  to  citizenship,  where  direct  taxes  were 
not  paid,  he  considers  it  quite  as  despotick  as  any 
thing  even  in  the  British  government;  because  the 
father  who  fights  for  his  own  liberty,  he  observes, 


192  LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

fights  also  for  the  liberty  of  his  children,  who  he 
thinks  should  be  suffered  to  vote  for  the  electors 
without  serving  a  campaign,  and  even  without 
paying  direct  taxes.  But  in  this  he  is  at  enmity 
with  himself,  his  doctrine  being  clearly,  I  think, 
an  hereditary  transmission  of  right  and  power. 
For  as  the  father  cannot  bind  his  son  to  posterity, 
so  he  cannot  acquire  rights  for  the  son,  which  the 
son,  without  any  merit  of  his  own,  shall  exercise 
with  and  over  posterity.  Let  the  son  fight  a  cam 
paign,  as  the  father  did,  or  pay  direct  taxes,  as 
he  did,  as  the  price  of  voting  for  electors  who  are 
to  elect  his  rulers.  The  present  age  is  as  free  as 
the  age  which  preceded  it :  i.  e.  to  acquire  immu 
nities  for  itself;  to  pull  down  that  which  it  finds 
established,  and  to  build  up  anew.  This  isPaine's 
doctrine  in  his  Rights  of  Man,  not  mine ;  a  doc 
trine  which  he  unwittingly  combats  in  his  speech 
against  Boissy  D'Anglas's  constitution.  The  truth 
is  that  every  age,  whether  it  will  or  not,  derives 
benefits  from  the  age  which  preceded  it.  In  this 
sense,  whatever  be  the  form  of  government  un 
der  which  we  live,  there  is  an  hereditary  trans 
mission  from  father  to  son  which  is  so  natural  and 
necessary,  that  no  form  of  government  can  des 
troy  it.  We  are  let  in  to  a  happy  state  of  socie 
ty  without  having  contributed  an  effort  to  pro 
duce  it.  Resting  upon  individual  rights  and  ex 
ertions,  the  rights  and  exertions  of  the  present 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS  PAINE.  193 

age,  without  reference  to  those  of  the  ages  which 
have  preceded  it,  are  born  to  the  condition  of  the 
untutored  Indian.     It  is  by  the  civilization  of  the 
ages  which  are  passed,  that  we  are  civilized  ;  it 
is  by  the  privileges  which  they  acquired,  that  we 
have  privileges.     For  the  liberty  we  enjoy  in  the 
United  States,  we  are  indebted  to  our  ancestors. 
We  have  acquired  nothing  of  it  ourselves  :  not  a 
jot  of  it  is  our  owri.     All  that  we  have  done,  is 
the   effecting  of  a   separation  from   the   parent 
country  :  all  that  we  have  achieved,  is   indepen 
dence.     But  we  have  no  liberty  but  that  which 
we  have  derived  from  England.     We  owe  it  all 
to  our  ancestors.     The  wild  parts  of  the  British 
constitution  are,  indeed,  more  wild  amongst  us, 
but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  we  have  the 
solid  portion  of  it,  that  which  secures  life,  liberty, 
and  property,  in  equal  perfection.    Burr,  charged 
with  treason,  and  tried  by  the  statute  of  Edward 
the  III.  would  have  had  a  less  vexatious  if  not  a 
more  impartial  trial  in  London,  than  he  had  in 
the  capital  of  Virginia.     In  England,  the  presses 
would  not  have  conspired  to  terrify  the  presiding 
judge,  by  detestable  menaces  and  denunciations, 
into  a  violation  of  the  law,  in  order  that  the  accus 
ed,  right  or  wrong,  might  be  hanged.  They  did  not, 
however,  even  with  us,  succeed.     The  admirable 
patience   and  firmness  of  chief  justice  Marshall 
enabled  the  law  to  triumph  over  the  machinations 

z 


LIFE  OF    THOMAS-  PAINE; 

of  the  president,  the  outrages  of  the  press,  and 
the  systematick  violence  of  a  party. 

No  notice  was  taken  by  the  convention  of 
Paine's  speech.  Boissy  d'Anglas's  constitution 
was  adopted  in  October,  1795,  but  not  without 
a  little  depletion  of  blood.  The  convention  had 
passed  a  decree,  that,  at  the  first  election  under  the 
new  constitution,  two-thirds  of  its  present  numbers, 
should  be  returned.  This  was  to  keep  out  the  jaco 
bins,  who  with  and  since  the  fall  of  Robespierre, 
had  been  driven  from  the  convention.  Now  as  all 
outs  want  to  get  ///,  and  the  principal  jacobins 
could  not  succeed  without  forcibly  and  victorious 
ly  resisting  the  decree,  their  creatures  were  or 
ganized  and  a  battle  was  fought  near  the  hall  of 
the  convention.  After  blowing  into  the  air  with 
cannon  about  two  thousand  of  the  insurgents,  and 
striking  off  the  heads,  with  the  national  razor,  of 
we  know  not  how  many  more,  the  constitution 
went  quietly  into  operation  according  to  the 
decree.  The  convention  was  now  formally  de 
stroyed,  and  as  Paine  was  never  afterwards 
elected,  the  constitution  of  Boissy  d'Anglas  ter 
minated  his  publick  functions  in  France. 

With  his  speech,  he  presented  to  the  conven 
tion  his  "Dissertation  on  the  first  principles  of 
•government,"  an  octavo  pamphlet  of  eighteen 
pages.  "  This  little  work,  he  observes,  I  did  in 
tend  to  have  dedicated  to  the  people  of  Holland, 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

vvho  about  the  time  I  began  to  write  it,  were  de 
termined  to  accomplish  a  revolution  in  their  go 
vernment,  rather  than  to  the  people  of  France, 
who  had  long  before  effected  \hakglorious  object.'* 
French  principles  and  force  had  got  into  oppress 
ed  Holland,  and  poisoned  and  overturned  every 
thing.  His  dissertation  is  a  weak  iteration  of  his 
Common  Sense  and  Rights  of  Man. 

His  next  work  'was  an  octavo  pamphlet  of 
twenty-two  pages,  on  the  English  system  of  fi 
nance  ;  a  system  which  the  United  States  have 
adopted:  it  was  published  in  April,  1796.  In 
this  effusion  of  malevolence,  he  predicts,  that 
the  system  "  will  not  continue  to  the  end  of  Mr, 
Pitt's  life,  supposing  him  to  live  the  usual  age  of 
a  man."  The  pamphlet  has  only  -served  to  show 
his  ignorance  on  financial  subjects. 

In  the  following  July,  he  published,  in  Paris, 
his  Letter  to  GENERAL  WASHINGTON,  an  octavo 
pamphlet  of  sixty-four  pages.  This  is  a  causeless, 
ungrateful,  virulent,  and  profligate  attack  on 
one  of  the  greatest  and  best  men  that  ever  lived. 

The  French  convention,  in  December,  1793, 
passed  a  decree  for  the  expulsion  of  all  the  mem 
bers  of  it  who  were  foreigners  by  birth.  Paine 
coming,  as  it  was  thought,  within  the  scope  of  its 
operations,  was  of  course  expdled. 

That  decree  was  followed  in  the  same  month 
by  one  for  imprisoning  every  man  in  France  born 


196  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

in  England.  Under  this  decree  he  was  impri 
soned. 

The  cause  of  the  attack  on  president  Wash 
ington  is,  as  alleged  by  Paine,  that  being  a  citi 
zen  of  the  United  States,  the  president  did  not 
exert  his  official  influence  with  the  French  go 
vernment  to  obtain  his  liberation.  This  is  the 
ground-work  of  sixty -four  pages  of  impotent  in 
vective  and  malicious  slander. 

His  premises  and  conclusion  are,  that  in  be 
coming  a  member  of  the  convention,  and  a  dti- 
"zen  of  France,  he  did  not  forfeit  his  citizenship 
in  the  United  States,  and  that,  therefore,  re 
maining  a  citizen,  and  being  of  course  entitled 
to  protection  as  such,  official  duty  and  personal 
gratitude  required  the  interposition  of  the  Ame 
rican  executive  in  his  behalf. 

His  expulsion  from  the  convention  seems  to 
favour  his  position,  that  he  was  not  considered 
a  citizen  of  France.  His  imprisonment  for 
being  an  Englishman,  which  immediately  suc 
ceeded,  is  quite  as  auspicious  to  his  attack. 

It  should,  however,  be  remembered,  that  the 
convention,  when  he  was  expelled  from  it,  was 
governed  by  jacobin  violence,  stimulated  and 
headed  by  Robespierre,  and  that  after  the  exe 
cution  of  Robespierre,  the  introduction  of  a  new 
faction,  a  little  more  moderate,  and  violence  had 
for  a  moment  ceased,  he  was  invited  to  resume 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  197 

his  seat  in  the  convention,  and  that  he  did  re 
sume  it. 

But  Paine  says : — "  I  have  always  considered 
that  a  foreigner,  such  as  I  was  in  fact  with  respect 
to  France,  might  be  a  member  of  a  convention 
for  forming  a  constitution  without  affecting  his 
right  of  citizenship  in  the  country  to  which  he 
belongs,  but  not  q  member  of  a  government  after 
a  constitution  is  formed  ;  and  I  have  uniformly 
acted  upon  this  distinction  "(fc) 

He  was  an  adopted  citizen  of  France.  But  as 
many  gentlemen  amongst  us,  who  have  never'cross- 
ed  the  Atlantick,  have  been  complimented,  if  it  be  a 
compliment,  with  a  similar  adoption,  the  mere 
act  of  adoption  would  make  nothing  against  him, 
if  the  fraternal  process  had  stopped  there. 

But  he  was  not  only  an  adopted  citizen  of 
France :  he  went  there  in  consequence  of  his 
adoption  and  election,  and  he  took  the  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  French  rcpublick.  Every  mem 
ber  of  the  convention  took  it  as  matter  of 
course,  and  so  did  Paine.  If,  therefore,  in  be 
coming  a  citizen  of  France  by  adoption,  and 
taking  the  oath  of  allegiance,  he  could  alienate 
his  citizenship  in  the  United  States,  he  ceased  to 
be  a  citizen. 


£)  Letter  to  General  Washington,  p.  14. 


198  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

Besides,  his  own  argument  is  its  own  refutation. 
He  might,  he  affirms,  be  a  f<  member  of  a  con 
vention  for  making  a  constitution,  without  affect 
ing  his  right  of  citizenship  in  the  country  to  which 
he  belongs,  but  not  a  member  of  a  government 
after  a  constitution  informed" 

If  then  after  the  constitution  was  formed,  in  the 
making  of  which  he  had  a  hand,  he  was  a  mem 
ber  of  the  government,  his  citizenship  in  the 
United  States,  according  to  his^own  doctrine,  was 
a  nullity.  In  order  to  take  away,  therefore,  the 
very  pretext  for  his  attack  on  Washington,  all 
that  is  necessary  is  to  show,  that  he  was  a  mem 
ber  of  the  government  after  the  constitution  was 
formed. 

The  constitution  of  Condorcet  and  Paine  was 
formed  and  presented  in  February,  1 793.  Here, 
therefore,  his  functions  ceased.  If  afterwards 
he  was  a  member  of  the  government,  he  ad 
mits  that  he  forfeited  his  right  of  citizenship  in 
the  United  States. 

Now  he  was  not  only  a  member  of  the  go 
vernment,  when,  in  December,  1793,  ten  months 
after  the  constitution  was  formed  and  presented, 
he  was  expelled  from  it  by  the  decree,  but  after 
his  imprisonment ;  and  we  find  him  as  late  as 
July,  1795,  making  a  speech  in  the  government 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  199 

after  his  own  constitution  was  destroyed,  against 
another  constitution. 

Again.  He  was  not  a  member  of  the  con 
vention  for  forming  a  constitution  only  j  he  was 
a  member  to  all  intents  and  purposes.  He  spoke 
on  the  trial  of  the  king ;  he  voted  on  the  trial  of 
the  king.  Was  that  forming  a  constitution  ?  He 
generally  assisted  ;n  the  transaction  of  publick 
business. 

So  much  I  have  said  merely  to  evince  how  er 
roneous  his  arguments  are  even  upon  his  own 
premises. 

And  his  premises  were  assumptions  of  false 
facts.  No  act  of  his  in  France,  no  citizenship  ; 
nothing  that  he  could  do  could  alienate  his  alle 
giance  from  the  United  States. 

The  article  in  our  national  constitution,  which 
he  imperfectly  quotes,  has  no  reference  to  situa 
tions  like  his.  It  applies  exclusively  to  "  persons 
holding  any  office  of  profit  or  trust  under  the 
United  States."  He  held  no  office  of  profit ;  cer* 
tainly  none  of  trust. 

Neither  our  national  constitution  nor  our  laws 
allows  of  self-expatriation.  In  this  regard  both 
are  precisely  the  same  as  the  constitution  and 
lawrs  of  England.  He  who  is  once  a  citizen,  as 
Paine  was,  is  always  a  citizen.  He  cannot  with 
draw  his  allegiance.  Our  national  government* 


200  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   ^AINE, 

|  can  always  claim  his  services.  It  always  owes  him 
j  protection,  and  he  always  owes  it  obedience.(7) 

But  this  makes  nothing  for  Paine.  Washington 
was  not  consequentially  bound,  nor  was  it  any  part 
of  his  duty,  as  executive  of  the  United  States,  to 
interfere  with  the  French  government  for  his  re 
lease  from  prison.  What  was  he  arrested  for  ? 
For  being  an  Englishman  by  birth.  Was  not  that 
the  fact  ?  Was  he  not  an  Englishman  ?  On  this 
point  only  the  principles  of  the  three  governments 
concur.  No  Frenchman  can  dispense  with  his 
allegiance  to  his  country ;  and  the  law  is  so  in  the 


(/)  Williams's  case,  tried  before  Chief  Justice  Ellsworth,  is 
the  only  one  that  has  come  before  the  United  States  courts.  In 
1792,  Williamswas  commissioned  by  the  French  Consul-Gen 
eral  residing  in  America  as  a  lieutenant  onboard  the  Jupiter,  a 
French  seventy-four.  The  Jupiter  sailed  in  the  autumn  of  the 
same  year  for  Rochefort,  where  Williams  was  naturalized, 
renouncing  his  allegiance  to  the  United  States.  After  his  na 
turalization,  he  was  commissioned  by  the  French  Republick  a 
second  lieutenant  on  board  the  French  frigate,  the  Caront. 
He  continued  in  the  commission  and  service  of  France  until 
the  27th  of  February,  1797,  when  he  was  seized  and  arrested 
for  accepting  a  commission  from  the  French  Republick,  to 
commit  acts  of  violence  against  the  king  of  Great  Britain,  and 
his  subjects,  with  whom  we  were  at  peace.  Williams  plead 
ed  in  justification  his  naturalization  in  France,  and  his  renun 
ciation  of  his  allegiance  to  the  United  States.  Chief  Justice 
Ellsworth  gave  the  following  opinion. 

"  The  common  law  of  this  country  remains  the  same  as  it 
was  before  the  revolution.  The  present  question  is  to  be  de.- 


LIFE   OP   THOMAS   PAINE. 

United  States,  as  well  as  in  England.  If  Paine 
had  been  arrested  merely  because  he  was  a  citi* 
zen  of  the  United  States,  then,  upon  a  due  repre 
sentation  of  the  fact  to  our  national  executive,  it 
would  have  been  the  duty  of  Washington  to  have 
interfered  in  his  behalf.  But  he  was  arrested  un 
der  a  decree  passed  against  persons  born  in  Eng 
land.  Paine  was  born  there.  Could  Washington 
have  said  that  he  was  not  ?  Could  he  have  arro 
gantly  insisted  on  a  repeal  of  the  decree  ? 

As  a  matter  of  right  he  had  no  claim  upon  the 
interposition  of  our  executive.     Asa  point  of  ex~ 


eided  by  two  great  principles;  one  is  that  all  the  members  of  the 
civil  community  are  bound  to  each  other  by  compact,  the  other 
is,  that  one  of  the  parties  to  this  compact  cannot  dissolve  it  by 
his  own  act.  The  compact  between  our  community  and  its 
members  is,  that  the  community  shall  protect  its  members, 
and  on  the  part  of  the  members,  that  they  will  at  all  times  be 
obedient  to  the  laws  of  the  community  and  faithful  in  its  de 
fence.  This  compact  distinguishes  our  government  from  those 
which  are  founded  in  violence  or  fraud.  It  necessarily  results 
that  a  member  cannot  dissolve  this  compact,  without  the 
consent  or  default  of  the  community.  There  has  been  no 
consent — no  default.  Default  is  not  pretended.  Express 
consent  is  not  claimed  ;  but  it  has  been  argued  that  the  con 
sent  of  the  community  is  implied  by  its  policy— its  condi 
tion — and  its  acts.  In  countries  so  crowded  with1  inhabitants, 
that  the  means  of  subsistence  are  difficult  to  be  obtained,  it  is 
reason  and  policy  to  permit  emigration  ;  but  our  policy  is  dif 
ferent  ;  for  our  country  is  but  scarcely  settled,  and  we  have 
ao  inhabitants  to  spare. 

A  a 


202  WFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE, 

pediency,  of  mercy,  or  of  sympathy,  he  had  no 
title  to  it  at  all. 

In  the  first  place  he  had  deliberately  embarked 
in  all  the  horrours  of  the  French  revolution.  He 
had  written  in  England  for  France — he  had  en 
deavoured  to  effect  a  revolution  in  England  in 
favour  of  France — he  had  been  elected  a  mem 
ber  of  the  convention,  and  coolly  and  thankfully 
taken  his  seat — he  had  been  adopted  a  citizen  of 
and  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  France.  Was 
he  to  be  pitied  when  one  of  the  inevitable  conse 
quences  of  the  revolution  came  upon  him  ?  Was 


"  CONSENT  has  been  argued  from  the  condition  of  the/ 
country,  because  we  were  in  a  state  of  peace.  But  though  we 
were  in  peace,  the  war  had  commenced  in  Europe. — We 
wished  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  war;  but  the  war 
would  have  something  to  do  with  us.  It  has  been  extremely 
difficult  for  us  to  keep  out  of  this  war  ;  the  progress  of  it  has 
threatened  to  involve  us.  It  has  been  necessary  for  our  go 
vernment  to  be  vigilant  in  restraining  our  own  citizens  from 
those  acts  which  would  involve  us  in  hostilities.  The  most 
visionary  writers  on  this  subject  do  not  contend  for  the  princi 
ple  in  the  unlimited  extent,  that  a  citizen  may  at  any,  and  at 
ail  times,  renounce  his  own,  and  join  himself  to  a  foreign 
country. 

"  CONSENT  has  been  argued,  from  the  acts  of  our  govern 
ment  permitting  the  naturalization  of  foreigners.  When  a 
foreigner  presents  himself  here,  and  proves  himself  to  be  of 
a  good  moral  character,  well  affected  to  the  constitution  and 
government  of  the  United  States,  and  a  friend  to  the  good  or 
der  and  happiness  of  civil  society ;  if  he  has  resided  here  the 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

the  power  of  the  United  States  to  be  employed, 
through  the  medium  of  their  executive,  to  extri 
cate  him  from  one  of  the  natural  effects  of  that 
stupendous  violence,  tyranny,  and  rapine,  which 
he  had  applauded  in  France,  when  others  were 
the  subjects  of  them,  and  which  he  had  exerted 
himself  to  stir  up  and  bring  about  in  England  ? 
He  calls  his  imprisonment  despotism,  and  he  ac 
cordingly  complains  of  it.  What,  the  free  re- 
publick  of  France,  whose  example  he  had  held 
up  to  England,  guilty  of  despotism !  But  it  was 
the  violence  of  Robespierre  !  And  was  not  Ro 
bespierre's  violence  an  effect  of  the  revolution ; 


time  prescribed  by  law,  we  grant  him  the  privileges  of  a  ci 
tizen.  We  do  not  enquire  what  his  relation  is  to  his  own  coun 
try  ;  we  have  not  the  means  of  knowing,  and  the  enquiry 
would  be  indelicate ;  we  leave  him  to  judge  of  that.  If 
he  embarrasses  himself  by  contracting  contradictory  obliga 
tions,  the  fault  and  the  folly  are  his  own  ;  but  this  implies  no 
consent  of  the  government,  that  our  own  citizens  should  ex 
patriate  themselves. 

"  It  is  therefore  my  opinion,  that  the  facts  which  the 
prisoner  offers  to  prove  in  his  defence,  are  totally  irrevelent ; 
they  can  have  no  operation  in  law,  and  the  jury  ought  not  to 
be  embarrassed  or  troubled  with  them ;  but  by  the  constitu 
tion  of  the  court,  the  evidence  must  go  to  the  jury." 

"The  cause  and  the  evidence  were  accordingly  committed 
to  the  jury.  The  jury  soon  agreed  on  a  verdict,  and  found  the 
prisoner  GUILTY. 

"  The  court  sentenced  him  to  pay  a  fine  of  1000  dollars, 
and  to  suffer  four  months  imprisonment." 


204  LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

of  a  lawless  course,  a  lawless  power  ?  If  he  did 
not  foresee  that  such  a  despotism  would  grow  out 
of  such  a  revolution,  he  was  unfit  to  write  ;  and 
if,  writing  as  he  did,  he  did  foresee  it,  he  was 
^  unfit  to  live. 

During  his  imprisonment  we  had  differences 
with  England,  which  Mr.   Jay,    honourably  to 
\         himself  and   greatly  for  the  interest  of  his  coun? 
try,  happily  adjusted.     Was  this  a  time  for  ge 
neral  Washington  to  use  his  influence  with  the 
rulers  of  France  for  the  liberation  of  a  man  so 
justly  obnoxious  to   the   British  government  as 
Paine  ?  Who  that  knows  any  thing  of  the  inter- 
X     course  between  nation  and  nation  will  say  that  it 
'•  was  ?    What  would  the  British  government  have 
thought  of  our  professions  of  friendship  ;  of  our 
desire  to  be  upon  good  terms  with  them  ? 

At  that  period  top  we  also  felt  the  effects  of  the 
French  revolution ;  of  those  anarchial  principles 
which  Paine  had  broached  in  his  Rights  of  Man, 
v  and  which  he  had  endeavoured  to  propagate  all 
N  over  Europe.  Our  government  was  nearly,  though 
not  quite  deposed  by  French  revolutionary  agents. 
Our  sovereignty  had  been  usurped  by  a  French 
minister.  The  President,  impartially,  ably,  and 
with  dignity  administering  the  government,  was, 
in  the  official  communications  of  that  minister  to 
l)im,  grossly  insulted.  The  most  opprobrious 
terms  ^vyere  assiduously  culled  from  the  language, 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  205 

as  if  to  try  how  patiently  a  good  government 
could  brook  contumely  and  insult.  Vindicating 
its  conduct  upon  the  principles  of  the  law  of  na 
tions,  that  minister  said  : — "  I  do  not  recollect 
what  the  'warm-eaten  writings  of  Grotius,  Puffen- 
dorff,  or  Vattel,  say  on  the  subject :  I  thank 
God  I  have  forgotton  what  these  hired  jitrispru- 
dists  have  written  upon  the  rights  of  nations  at  a 
period  when  all  were  enchained"  !  France  thank 
ed  God  too,  no  doubt,  with  her  minister,  that 
she  had  forgotten  both  law  and  justice.  Paine 
had  largely  contributed  to  this  horrid  state  of 
things.  What  feelings  then  could  WAHSINGTON 
have  had  for  him  ?  Those  of  friendship  ?  Impos 
sible  ! 

As  to  gratitude,  Washington  certainly  owed 
him  none  :  he  had  himself  done  more  than  any 
man  living  for  the  independence  of  his  country. 
But  if  he  ever  was  in  debt  to  Paine  on  that  score, 
he  discharged  it  at  the  end  of  the  war  by  his 
strenuous  though  unsuccessful  efforts  to  procure 
for  him  from  congress  a  provision  for  life.  That 
the  national  and  two  of  the  state  governments  did 
more  than  adequately  reward  his  revolutionary 
efforts,  is  certain.  They  made  him  for  life  inde 
pendent  in  his  pecuniary  circumstances,  and  that 
was  surely  paying  him  liberally  for  his  trifling  re 
volutionary  labour  ;  for  writing  Common  Sense 


206  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

and  the  Crisis,  two  pamphlets,  both  making  not 
more  than  two  hundred  and  twenty  pages. 

The  real  cause  of  the  attack,  if  the  French  ru 
lers  had  not  set  him  on,  was  our  commercial  trea 
ty  with  England.  He  lived  and  died  at  war  with 
the  government  by  which  he  had  been  dismissed 
from  the  excise,  as  well  as  with  the  nation  which 
contained  his  wife. 

His  total  want  of  principle  and  disregard  of 
every  thing  like  consistency,  are  in  nothing  more 
manifest  than  in  his  calumnies  against  Washing 
ton. 

4<  The  victory  over  the  Hessians  at  Princeton, 
he  observes,  by  a  harrassed  and  wearied  party, 
is  attended  with  such  a  scene  of  circumstances 
and  superiority  of  generalship,  as  will  ever  give 
it  a  place  in  the  first  line  in  the  history  of  great 
actions."  Crisis,  No.  5. 

But  in  his  Parisian  assault,  Washington  is  quite 
a  different  character.  In  this,  "  it  is  time,  he 
says,  to  speak  the  undisguised  language  of  histori 
cal  truth."(?ra)  It  is  no  longer  necessary,  he  thinks, 
to  play  the  hypocrite.  He  then  adds,  that  "  the 


(TO)  Letter  to  Washington,  p,  10.  He  remarked  to  Mrs. 
Palmer  :  "  It  is  well  enough  to  say  nothing  about  it ;  the 
time  is  not  yet  come"  But  the  time  z>  now  come  to  speak, 
as  he  calls  it,  the  truth  of  Washington  ! 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  207 

successful  skirmishes  at  the  close  of  the  campaign 
of  1776,(fl)  make  the  brilliant  exploits  of  General 
Washington's  seven  campaigns.  No  wonder  we 
see  so  much  pusillanimity  in  the  president(o) 
when  we  see  so  little  enterprize  in  the  general." 
Letter  to  Washington,  p.  31. 

Here  are  too  opposite  representations  of  the 
same  action.  In  the  one,  that  of  the  Crisis,  there 
was  such  "  a  superiority  of  generalship,  as  will 
ever  give  it  a  place  in  the  first  line  in  the  history 
of  GREAT  ACTIONS."  In  the  other,  that  of  the 
Letter  to  Washington,  there  was  no  enterprize, 
no  generalship  at  all,  and  the  GREAT  ACTION  be 
comes  an  insignificant  skirmish  \ 

"  Voltaire  has  remarked,  he  tells  us,  that  king 
William  never  appeared  to  full  advantage  but  in 
difficulties  and  in  action.  The  same  remark 
may  be  made  of  General  Washington,  for  the 
character  suits  him.  There  is  a  natural  firmness 
in  some  minds  which  cannot  be  unlocked  by 
trifles,  but  which,  when  unlocked,  discovers  a 
cabinet  of  fortitude ;  and  I  reckon  it  among 
those  kind  of  publick  blessings,  which  we  do  not 
immediately  see,  that  God  hath  blessed  him  with 


(ri)  The  capture  of  the  Hessians. 

(o)  Alluding  to  tlje  ratification  of  the  British  treaty. 


208  LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

uninterrupted  health,  and  given  him  a  mind  that 
can  even  flourish  upon  care."  Crisis,  No*  1. 

This  .was  written  during  the  war.  After 
he  received  his  compensation-money  from  con** 
gress,  he  seems  to  have  entertained  the  same 
opinion  of  the  virtue,  resolution,  and  philosophy 
of  Washington,  to  whom  he  thus  dedicates  the 
first  part  of  his  Rights  of  Man. 

"  I  present  you  a  small  treatise  in  defence  of 
those  principles  of  freedom  which  your  exempla 
ry  virtue  hath  so  eminently  contributed  to  estab 
lish.  That  the  Rights  of  Man  may  become  as 
universal  as  your  benevolence  can  wish,  and  that 
you  may  enjoy  the  happiness  of  seeing  the  new 
world  regenerate  the  old,  is  the  prayer  of 
sir,"  &c. 

But  Washington  is  the  antipodes  of  all  this  in 
his  Parisian  letter.  "  As  to  you,  sir,  treacherous 
in  private  friendship,  and  a  hypocrite  in  publick 
life,  the  world  will  be  puzzled  to  decide,  whether 
you  are  an  apostate  or  an  impostor  ;  whether  you 
have  abandoned  good  principles,  or  whether  you 
ever  had  any  !"  Letter  to  Washington,  p.  34.(/>) 


(//)  At  the  same  time  he  wrote,  but  never  printed,  the 
following  epigram,  which  he  gave  tome  soon  after  his  arrival 
in  New- York. 

**  Take  from  the  mine  the  hardest,  roughest  stone, 

It  needs  no  fashion,  it  is  WASHINGTON  : 

But  if  you  chisel,  let  your  strokes  be  rude, 

And  on  his  breast  engrave  ingratitude* 


LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  209 

From  vilifying  Washington,  he  returned  to 
his  abuse  of  the  Christian  religion.  In  October, 
1796,  he  published  tiie  second  part  of  the  Age  of 
Reason.  He  had  now  furnished  himself  with  a 
Bible  and  Testament,  and  "I  can  say,  he  adds, 
that  I  have  found  them  to  be  much  worse  books 
than  I  had  conceived.'7 

It  appears  throughout  both  the  first  and  second 
part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  that,  as  in  govern 
ment,  his  object  was  not  the  maintenance,  as  a 
man  of  letters,  if  such  he  considered  himself, 
of  a  speculative  point  about  which  philosophers 
in  their  elaborate  investigations  of  abstruse  sub- 
jects  may  very  harmlessly  differ,  but  the  propa 
gation  of  licentious  doctrines  amongst  the  lowrer 
orders,  with  a  view  to  weaken  if  not  to  destroy, 
in  practice,  that  awful  fear  which  restrains 
them  from  the  commission  of  sins  against 
God  and  crimes  against  man.  Admitting  that 
he  was  not  unfaithful  to  himself  in  the  crude 
deistical  opinions  which  he  rudely  diffused,  yet 
as  he  wrote  not  for  reading  and  thinking  men, 
could  he  have  had  any  oth*r  object  than  that  of 
mingling  with  his  wasteful  anarchy  in  the  affairs 
of  government,  a  more  detestable  anarchy  in  the 
more  solemn  affairs  of  religion  ?  Our  well  being 
here,  without  considering  the  more  weighty 
matter  of  hereafter,  is  so  inseparable  from,  so 
identified  with  religion,  that  we  have  nothing  tp 

B  b 


210  LIFE    OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

expect  from  a  relaxation  of  its  high  obligations 
but  robberies  more  vast,  ruin  more  complete,  ty 
ranny  more  intolerable,  than  the  plunderings  and 
butcheries  and  despotisms,  of  which  France  was 
for  so  many  years  the  hapless  subject.  What 
eligion  could  be  substituted  of  equal  excellence 
with  that  which  sways  Christendom,  and  mollifies 
the  natural  ferocity  of  man  ?  I  am  putting  the 
divinity  of  it  out  of  the  question,  and  consider 
ing  it  only  in  reference  to  its  benign  influence 
upon  society.  I  have  associated  with  deists; 
I  have  listened  to  the  dogmas  of  deism,  and 
although  priestly  intolerance  and  persecution, 
the  abuses  of  the  Christian  religion,  are  prin 
cipally  the  alleged  causes  of  their  aversion 
from  the  one  and  their  attachment  to  the 
other,  yet  I  have  found  them  in  spirit  more  in 
tolerant  and  persecuting,  if  possible,  than  any 
thing  which  distinguishes  the  sufferings  of  the 
Hugonots  or  the  bloody  reign  of  Mary.  Elihu 
Palmer,  the  deistical  spouter,  was,  in  the  small 
circle  of  his  church,  more  priestly,  more  fulmi 
nating,  and  looked  for  more  reverence  and  ado 
ration  from  his  disciples,  than  the  Lauds  and  Gar- 
diners  of  England.  Without  the  means,  he  af 
fected  all  the  haughtiness  of  Wolsey.  Professing 
to  adore  reason,  he  was  in  a  rage  if  any  body 
reasoned  with  him.  He  viewred  himself  as  an 
oracle,  whose  sayings  na  one  was  to  question. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  211 

Paine  was  equally  a  dogmatizer  ;  equally  a  deal 
er  in  authority,  which  was  himself.  They  who 
tested  every  thing  but  their  own  opinions,  suffer 
ed  not  their  own  opinions  to  be  tested. 

In  the  year  1797,  he  published  a  "  Letter  to 
the  honourable  Thomas  Erskine."  Williams,  of 
London,  a  bookseller,  had  been  convicted  for 
publishing  the  Age  of  Reason,  and  Erskine  had 
conducted  the  prosecution  for  the  crown.  His 
speech  was  sufficiently  excellent  to  excite  the 
rancour  of  Paine  :  of  the  rare  eloquence  of  that 
gentleman,  it  is,  perhaps,  the  choicest  specimen. 
The  letter  repeats,  in  coarse  and  indecent  lan 
guage,  the  ribaldry  of  his  Age  of  Reason. 

In  January  of  this  year  the  "  Society  of  the 
Theophilanthropists,"  calling  themselves  "adorers 
of  God  and  lovers  of  man,"  a  knot  of  atheists 
and  deists,  was  commenced  in  Paris.  To  these 
gloomy  misanthropists,  Paine,  the  high  priest, 
delivered  a  discourse,  the  object  of  which  was  to 
prove  the  "  existence  of  a  "  superiour"  cause,  or 
that  which  man  calls  God."  It  begins  with  a 
vapid  declamation  against  atheism ;  just  such  a 
one  as  a  man  would  write  who  was  anxious  for 
the  prevalence  of  that  most  execrable  of  all  dog 
mas.  Atheists,  he  admits,  for  to  the  scandal  of 
human  nature  there  have  been  such  persons, 
reason  well  upon  the  maxims  which  they  have 
assumed,  but,  explorers  of  all  nature  as  he  thinks 


212  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

they  are,  they  have  overlooked  a  principle,  he 
says,  which  &?has  discovered,  and  which,  alone, 
he  is  positive,  introduces  us  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  existence  of  God.  This  he  calls  a  circum 
stance,  and  that  circumstance  is  motion,  which,  he 
adds,  is  not  a  property  of  matter,  and  therefore, 
not  being  a  property  of  matter,  and  yet  existing, 
its  existence  proves  the  existence  of  God.  This 
is  the  amount  of  his  discourse  ;  of  his  indubitable 
proof  of  the  being  of  God  !  To  evince,  there 
fore,  upon  this  old  principle,  which  he  advances 
as  newi  that  there  is  no  God,  as  "  the  fool  hath 
said  in  his  heart,"  it  is  only  necessary  to  show, 
that  motion  is  a  property  of  matter.  Was  it  with 
this  view  that  he  advanced  the  doctrine  I  Surely 
he  was  not  ignorant  that  we  can  have  no  idea  of 
matter  without  motion,  positive  or  relative,  nor 
of  motion  without  matter.  Mirabeau,  in  his 
"  System  of  Nature,"  founds  his  atheism  upon 
the  dogma,  that  nature  is  constantly  in  brisk  mo 
tion,  decomposing  and  recomposing  ;  that  the 
"  dissolution  of  one  body,  which  we  call  death,  is 
but  the  beginning  of  life  and  animation  in  ano 
ther,"  and  that  matter  is  never  at  rest.  If  of  the 
being  of  God,  of  which  all  existence,  ajl  that  we 
see  and  know  and  feel  are  so  many  demonstra 
tions,  we  had  no  better  proof  than  Paine 's  elabo 
rately  obscure,  weak,  and  impious  discourse, 
then  would  our  condition  here  be  indeed  mise- 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  213 

rable ;  then  should  we  have  no  dread  of  some- 
tlung  hereafter ;  no  hope  of  happiness  beyond 
the  grave. 

In  the  same  year  he  published  a  small  tract 
which  he  entitled  "  Agrarian  Justice."  This  is 
a  proposition  submitted  to  all  nations,  for  compel 
ling  all  land  holders  to  pay  a  tenth  part  of  the 
value  of  their  estates,  towards  constituting  a  fund 
out  of  which  every  person  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
one  should  receive  fifteen  pounds  sterling,  and 
ten  pounds  when  arrived  at  fifty.  Of  all  the  theo 
ries  of  the  wretched  innovators  of  the  present 
age,  those  miserable  empericks  who  have  disturb 
ed  and  desolated  the  world,  this  is  one  of  the 
most  visionary,  and  yet  it  is  probable,  that  like 
other  fanciful  and  levelling  schemes,  it  has  its  ad 
vocates.  Paine  is  of  opinion,  that  the  exaction 
would  be  just,  and  he  grounds  it  upon  the  as 
sumption,  that  no  man  has  a  right  to  appropriate 
land  to  himself,  God  having  given  it  in  common 
to  all.  "  It  is  the  value  of  the  improvement 
only,  he  says,  and  not  the  earth  itself,  that  is 
individual  property.  Every  proprietor  therefore 
of  cultivated  land  owes  to  the  community  a 
ground  rent,"  of  ten  per  cent,  according  to  his 
estimate,  to  be  extorted  and  applied  as  I  have 
stated. 

On  a  subject  like  this  there  is  much  of  folly  in 
going  back  in  argument  to  that  rude  or  natural 


214  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

state  to  which  society  never  can  revert  in  prac 
tice.    But  passing  over  the   inutility  of  the  one, 
and  the  impracticability  of  the  other,  Paine's  ar 
gument,  on  the  supposition  of  a  state  of  nature, 
in  which  there  is  no  location  or  appropriation  of 
land,  is  fundamentally  erroneous,  and  is,  besides, 
at  variance  with  itself.     With  regard  to  his  con 
tradictions,  he  affirms,  that  as  the  earth  cannot 
become  individual  property,  those  who  have  par 
celled  it  out  and  possess  it,  "owe  a  ground  rent 
to  the  community.'*     The  community  then  can 
own  it ;  that  is  his  meaning,  else  individuals  who 
happen  to  hold  cannot  rightfully  owe  to  the  com- 
jnunity  any  thing  for  the  possession  of  that  to 
which  the  community  has  no  title.     The  commu 
nity,  nation,  or  government,  for  in  the  argument 
they  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  being  made  up  of 
individuals,  how,  if  individuals  cannot  locate  or 
appropriate  to  themselves  any  portion  of  the  earth, 
can  the  aggregate  of  individuals,  the  nation,  locate 
and  appropriate  to  itself  the  whole  ?  If  he  had  said 
that  it  necessarily  belongs  to  the  sovereignty,  he 
would  have  found  himself  in  the  same  dilemma,  for 
the  COMMON  is  then  gone ;  it  is  no  longer  a  common . 
it  is  located  ;  it  is  the  property  of  the  govern 
ment,  and  those  who  wish  to  cultivate  any  por 
tion  of  it  for  sustenance,  must  purchase.     He 
would  give  to  all  that  which  he  denies  to  all  it? 
parts,  and  therefore  to  all. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  215 

The  rightful  acquisition  of  land  is  contempora 
ry  with  and  inseparable  from  its  cultivation, 
which  is  antecedent  to  a  community,  as  civiliza 
tion,  in  whatever  degree,  always  precedes  go 
vernment.  There  is,  in  the  rude  state  which 
he  has  supposed,  no  community,  no  govern 
ment  ;  every  thing  is  in  common,  and  yet  there  is 
no  common  consent,  no  common  rule  of  ac 
tion,  which  means  government.  In  this  condi 
tion  location  is  essential  to  cultivation  and  sus 
tenance;  and  as  no  one  \vould  bestow  labour 
upon  that  which  he  would  be  unable  to  secure  to 
himself,  and  which  could  not  be  secured  to  him  j 
cultivation  and  acquisition  are,  in  this  imagina 
ry  state  of  things,  necessarily  one  and  the  same 
rightful  act. 

This  year  he  also  published^)  a  cc  Letter 
to  the  People  of  France,  and  the  French  Ar 
mies,  on  the  event  of  the  18th  Fructidor"  The 
18th  Fructidor  [September  4,  1797,  in  Christian 
language]  introduced  to  Paris  a  fresh  explosion, 
and  Paine's  letter  wras  intended  to  reconcile  the 
armies,  &c.  to  the  event.  Boissy  D'Anglas's  con 
stitution  of  1 795,  the  constitution  of  elders  and 
youngsters,  and  of  a  directory  of  five,  wThich 


(17)  His  Agrarian  Justice,  he   states  in  the   preface,  was 
written  in  the  'winter  of  1795-6. 


216  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

lasted  until  the  approach  of  this  Fructidor,  had 
made  way  for  the  presidency  of  Pichegru  over 
the  council  of  five  hundred.  Pichegru  and  his 
associates  sought  to  mitigate  the  rigours  of  the 
revolution  by  re-opening  some  of  the  churches, 
inviting  the  return  of  many  of  the  clergy,  and 
curtailing  the  proscription  list.  These  comforting 
measures  being  deemed  a  conspiracy  against  the 
republick,  a  new  revolution  happened,  in  which, 
to  the  total  disregard  of  the  constitution,  Piche 
gru  and  his  fellow  labourers  were,  without  trial, 
banished. 

Paine,  who,  if  he  were  not  a  pander  of  the 
French  government,  was  a  base  trembling  slave, 
writes  his  letter  in  justification  of  this  "  extraor 
dinary  measure,"  as  he  himself  terms  it  in  the 
very  first  page,  although  he  admits  that  the  mea 
sure,  which  he  is  vindicating,  was  unconstitu 
tional! 

And  as  if  to  heighten  the  degree  of  his  own 
offence  and  the  atrocity  of  the  government,  he 
pronounces  upon  the  constitution  which  has  been 
violated  a  most  extravagant  panegyrick.  "  A 
better  organized  constitution,  he  says,  never  was 
devised  by  human  wisdom.  It  is,  in  its  organi 
zation,  free  from  all  the  defects  to  which  other 
forms  of  government  are  more  or  less  subject."(r) 

(r)  Page  1. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  217 

This  is  the  constitution  which  destroyed  the  uni 
versal  suffrage  which  he  and  Condorcet  had  pre 
scribed  in  theirs.  This  is  the  constitution  which 
makes  a  campaign  in  the  army  one  of  the  innu 
merable  qualifications  of  a  citizen  ;  which  places 
between  the  citizen  and  his  government  electoral 
colleges;  which,  therefore,  does  not  permit  the 
citizen  to  vote  for  a  member  either  of  the  elders 
or  the  youngsters  /  and  which,  lastly,  Paine  him 
self  pusillanimously  opposed  in  his  speech  to  the 
convention,  in  July,  1795. 

His  encomiums  on  this  violated  constitution, 
which,  in  1795,  he  opposed  as  a  bad  one,  and 
which,  in  1797,  he  declares  ie  the  best  that  "  hu 
man  wisdom  ever  devised,"  are  regular  and  sys- 
tematick,  beginning  with  the  council  of  ancients, 
proceeding  to  that  of  five  hundred,  and  ending 
with  a  laboured  eulogium  on  the  directory  of 
five.  Every  branch  has  his  cordial  approbation, 
but  with  the  executive  of  five  he  is  passionately 
in  love. 

"  In  the  first  place,  he  remarks,  speaking  of 
the  directory  of  five,  shall  the  executive  by  elec 
tion  be  an  individual  or  a  plurality  ?(s) 


(.s)  There  was  no  question  about  a  new  constitution.     He  is 
only  endeavouring  to  show  that  that  which  is,  is  right, 

C  c 


218  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

/  "  An  individual  by  election"  [as  in  the  United 
States]  "  is  almost  as  bad,  he  continues,  as  the 
HEREDITARY  SYSTEM,  except  that  there  is  always 
a  better  chance  of  not  having  an  ideot.  But  he 
will  never  be  any  thing  more  than  a  chief  of  a 
party,  and  none  but  those  of  that  party  will 
have  access  to  him."(Y) 

This  is  the  reverse  of  the  language  which,  in 
his  Rights  of  Man,  he  sprfe  to  the  people  of 
England.  There,  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  the  paragon  of  all  constitutions  :  it 
was  the  new  system7 in  contradistinction  to  the 
old.  There,  the  election  of  the  president  was 
sumptuously  described  as  embracing  all  excel 
lence.  But  compared  with  Boissy  D'Anglas's  con 
stitution,  in  which  the  executive  was  not  elected 
by  the  people,  nor  by  the  electoral  colleges,  but  by 
the  legislative  body,  that  excellence  becomes 
"  almost  as  bad  as  the  hereditary  system !"  The 
only  "  exception,"  in  Paine's  opinion,  to  the 
equal  baseness  of.  the  two  is,  that,  by  election, 
there  is  a  better  "  chance  of  not  having  an  idiot !" 
Preferring  a  plural  executive  to  an  individual, 
the  next  question  is,  he  observes,  "  what  shall 
be  the  number  of  that  plurality  ?" 


(/O  Page  6.     In   the   latter   remark  he  is  undoubtedly  cor- 
rec,t.     It  ia  so  iu  the  United  States. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  219 

"  Three  are  too  few,  either  for  the  variety  or 
the  quantity  of  business.  The  constitution  has 
adopted  five,  and  experience  has  shown  that  this 
number  of  directors  is  sufficient  for  all  the  pur 
poses,  and  therefore  a  greater  number  would  only 
be  an  unnecessary  expense."(?/) 

The  number  which  France  had  hit  upon,  and 
which,  I  agree  with  him,  is  quite  sufficient,  he 
seems  to  think  designed  by  nature  for  all  govern-, 
ments,  although  human  wisdom,  in  no  part  of 
the  world,  except  in  France,  has  as  yet  adopted 
it.  Nature,  he  says,  has  given  us  exactly  five 
senses,  and  the  same  number  of  ringers  and  toes, 
pointing  out  to  us,  by  this  kindness,  the  propriety 
of  an  executive  directory  of  five,  precisely  as  in 
France.(z>)  If  one  sense,  he  continues,  had  been 
sufficient,  she  would  have  given  us  no  more  :  an 
individual  executive,  he  therefore  infers,  is  uiv 
natural  and  unphilosophical,  "  individuality  being 
exploded  by  nature."  Surely  tyranny  never  had 
a  more  fawning  parasite,  freedom  a  more  decided 
enemy. 

The  efficacy  of  paper  constitutions,  as  describ 
ed  by  him  in  the  Rights  of  Man,  w7as,  in  the 
proceeding  against  Pichegru  and  his  friends,  not 


(w)  Page  6—7. 
(r)  Pa-e  7. 


220  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

only  disproved  by  the  fact,  but  the  fact  itself, 
which  was  very  agreeable  to  him,  gave  the  lie  to 
his  former  doctrines.  During  the  ascendancy  of 
the  two  committees  of  revolution  and  safety, 
there  wras  a  form  of  trial ;  a  mockery  indeed 
and  an  outrage,  but  under  the  paper  constitution 
of  Boissy  D'Anglas,  which  it  was  supposed  had 
terminated  summary  proceedings  and  instant  ex 
ecutions,  Pichegru  and  his  colleagues  were  ban 
ished  from  the  council  of  five  hundred  without 
even  the  ceremony  of  a  trial.  Where  now  was 
the  cogency  and  omnipotence  of  a  paper  consti 
tution  ?  Party  and  injustice  had  laid  it  aside, 
and  Paine  panegyrizes  the  act !  Suspicion  was 
sufficient  even  with  him  to  authorise  a  dispensa 
tion  with  all  constitutional  obligations.  There 
was  no  evidence  of  guilt :  none  was  produced  ; 
none  was  sought  for.  Nor  was  guilt,  in  his 
estimation,  necessary ;  presumption,  ill-grounded 
presumption  was  enough.  "  The  obstinacy  with 
which  the  conspiracy,  he  says,  persevered  in  its 
repeated  attacks  upon  the  directory,  in  framing 
laws  in  favour  of  emigrants  and  refractory  priest s^ 
admitted  of  no  other  direct  interpretation  than 
that  something  was  rotten  in  the  council  of  five 
hundred.  The  evidence  of  circumstances  became 
every  day  too  visible  not  to  be  seen."(**0 

(sy)  Page  14. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  221 

I  feel  great  difficulty  in  repressing  the  indigna 
tion  which  rises  from  reviewing  the  nefarious 
publications  and  conduct  of  this  man.  Robes 
pierre,  he  says,  was  a  tyrant.  Why  ?  Because 
he  sent  men  to  their  account  on  suspicion. 
Speaking  of  his  own  case,  when  in  prison,  he 
remarks,  that  owing  to  the  prevalence  of  this  doc 
trine  of  suspicion,  "'there  was  no  time  when  I 
could  think  my  life  worth  twenty-four  hours."(V) 
What  difference  wras  there  between  Robespierre 
and  himself  ?  Suspicion  was  enough  with  Robes 
pierre  ;  suspicio?i  was  enough  with  Paine.  Robes 
pierre  called  out  conspiracy,  and  off  went  a  head; 
Paine,  when  he  himself  was  not  the  subject  of  the 
same  despotism  and  cruelty,  echoed  the  cry,  and 
Pichegru  and  his  associates  were  banished.  Pich- 
egru,  he  asserts,  was  guilty  of  a  conspiracy 
against  the  state.  In  wrhat  was  he  a  conspirator  ? 
Paine  tells  us — "  in  framing  laws  in  favour  of 
emigrants  and  refractory  priests.''  This  was  the 
conspiracy  !  Admitting  that  the  framing  of  such 
laws  was  treason,  where  is  the  proof;  what  is 
it  ?  The  "  evidence,  Paine  answers,  of  circum 
stances"  Without  accusation,  then,  without  trial, 
circumstances,  susceptible  of  a  thousand  inter 
pretations,  authorised  the  banishment  of  Pichc- 


(u.-)  Letters  to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States. 


222  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAItfE. 

gru,  and  the   destruction  of  the  paper  constitu 
tion  ! 

Pichegru  and  his  banished  associates  were  le 
gislators.  If,  wishing  to  relax  the  rigours  and 
the  proscriptions,  and  to  lessen  the  miseries  of  the 
revolution,  they  had  "framed  laws  favouring 
emigrants  and  refractory  priests ;"  had  they  not, 
as  legislators,  a  right  to  do  so  ?  It  did  not 
follow,  because  such  acts  were  framed,  that 
the  acts  would  become  laws.  If,  as  members, 
they  had  no  voice  in  legislation,  they  were  pup 
pets  ;  and  if  they  erred  in  opinion,  is  errour  of 
opinion  criminal  in  a  legislator  ?  And  banish 
them  too  without  trial !  Is  this  republicanism  ? 
Is  this  freedom  ? 

In  the  early  stages  of  the  revolution,  the  armed 
force,  at  the  beck  of  the  dominant  party,  over 
awed  the  legislative  body.  Boissy  D'Anglas's 
constitution  had  guarded  against  this  dreadful 
evil,  as  far  as  a  paper  constitution  could  do  so. 
The  armed  force  was  not  to  approach  nearer  to 
Paris  than  twelve  leagues.  But  the  party  in  the 
government  to  which  Paine  was  attached,  and  of 
which  he  was  an  infamous  tool,  meditating  the 
overthrow  of  Pichegru  and  his  friends,  ordered 
the  armed  force  within  the  constitutional  limits, 
as  instruments  of  their  designs.  This  indication 
of  a  bloody  purpose  excited  alarm.  Paine  justi 
fies  the  march  of  the  troops ;  Paine  vindicates 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

this  atrocious  violence  committed  on  the  paper 
constitution,  "  Conspiracy,  he  observes,  is  quick 
of  suspicion,  and  the  fear  which  the  faction  in 
the  council  of  five  hundred  manifested  upon  this 
occasion,  could  not  have  suggested  itself  to  inno 
cent  men.  Neither  would  innocent  men  have  ex 
postulated  with  the  directory  upon  the  case." 
"  The  leaders  of  the  faction  conceived  that  the 
troops  were  inarching  against  them,  and  the  con 
duct  they  adopted  in  consequence  of  it,  was  suf 
ficient  to  justify  the  measure,  even  if  it  had  been 
so.  From  what  other  motive  than  the  conscious 
ness  of  their  own  designs  could  they  have 
fear  ?"(*/)  The  murderous  sayings  of  Jeffreys  to 
Sydney  are  inferiour  in  atrocity  to  this.  Paine 
infers  guilt  from  a  meritorious  act.  The  consti 
tution  is  outraged  by  the  march  of  the  troops. 
The  faction,  as  he  indecorously  denominates  a 
part  of  the  legislative  body,  express  fear  in  behalf 
of  the  constitution.  This  fear,  so  natural,  so 
commendable,  so  patriotick,  he  construes  into 
guilt,  and  this  guilt,  he  profligately  asserts,  was 
"  sufficient  to  justify  the  marching  of  the  troops 
against  the  legislators  !"  Can  there  be  baseness, 
can  there  be  despotism  greater  than  this  ? 


(w)  Page  15. 


224  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

His  letter  to  the  army  was  his  last  work  in 
France.  Wearied  with  the  republick,  though 
obstinately  bent  on  maintaining  his  principles 
against  his  feelings,  he  now  sighed  to  return  to 
the  United  States,  "  whose  election  of  the  chief 
magistrate  is  almost  as  bad  as  the  hereditary  sys 
tem."  He  knew  not  indeed  what  to  do  with 
himself.  He  could  not  return  to  England,  where 
he  had  been  wisely  outlawed,  and  he  was  aware 
that  he  was  odious  in  the  United  States.  Wash 
ington  justly  considered  him  an  anarchist  in  go- 
•  ^s*  vernment,  and  an  infidel  in  religion.  He  had  no 
country  in  the  world,  and  it  may  truly  be  said 
that  he  had  not  a  friend.  Was  ever  man  so 
wretched  ?  Was  ever  enormous  sinner  so  justly 
punished  ?  He  must,  however,  return  to  the 
United  States,  for  he  was  poor ;  the  plunderers 
of  France  having  plundered  only  for  themselves. 
/'  He  still  retained  his  farm  at  New-Rochelle,  and 
he  was  sensible,  that  greatly  increased  in  value, 
it  would  abundantly  supply  all  his  wants. 

But  how  to  get  to  the  United  States  with  safe 
ty,  was  the  question.  The  ocean,  bearing  proud 
ly  upon  its  swelling  bosom  the  gallant  force  of 
England,  was  impassable  to  him.  He  now  felt 
the  force  of  the  prosecution  at  which  he  had 
laughed.  By  it  he  was  limited  to  the  bastile  of 
France,  and  compelled  to  endure  all  its  horrours. 
\/  He  had  made  arrangements,  he  says,  to  return 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  22$ 

with  Mr.  Monroe,  and  that  it  was  fortunate  he 
did  not,  as  the  vessel  in  which  that  minister  re 
turned  was  "  boarded  by  a  British  frigate  on  her 
passage,  and  every  part  of  her  searched,  dowjn 
even  to  her  hold,  for  Thomas  Paine."(~)  Imme 
diately  after  he  went  to  Havre,  in  order  to  em 
bark,  but  as  several  British  frigates  were  cruising 
off  the  port,  he  returned  to  Paris.  "  I  then,  he 
states,  wrote  to  Mr.  Jefferson,  that  if  the  fate  of 
the  election  should  put  him  in  the  chair  of  the 
presidency,  and  he  should  have  occasion  to  send 
a  frigate  to  France,  he  would  give  me  an  oppor 
tunity  of  returning  by  it,  which  he  did.  But  I 
declined  coming  by  the  Maryland,  the  vessel 
that  was  offered  me,  and  waited  for  the  frigate 
that  was  to  bring  the  new  minister,  Chancellor 
Livingston,  to  France,  but  that  frigate  was  or 
dered  round  to  the  Mediterranean ;  and  as  at  that 
time  the  war  was  over,  and  the  British  cruisers 
[were]  called  in,  I  could  come  any  way.  I  then 
agreed  to  come  with  Commodore  Barney,  in  a 
vessel  he  had  engaged.  I  was  again  fortunate  I 
did  not,  for  the  vessel  sunk  at  sea,  and  the  peo 
ple  were  preserved  in  a  boat."(a) 

He  continued  in  France  from  the  year  1797, 
the  date  of  his  letter  to  the  French  army,  to  the 


(z}  Letter  .4  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,, 
(c)  Ibid. 

D  d 


2:26  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

year  1802,  associating,  during  that  time,  with  the 
lowest  company,  and  indulging,  to  still  greater 
excess,  his  thirst  for  liquor.  He  became  so  filthy 
in  his  person,  so  mean  in  dress,  and  so  notorious 
a  sot,  that  all  men  of  decency  in  Paris  avoided 
him. 

On  the  30th  of  October,  1 802,  he  arrived  at 
Baltimore,  under  the  protection  of  President  Jef 
ferson.  The  subjoined  is  an  extract  of  Mr.  Jef 
ferson's  answer  to  Paine's  request  for  permission 
to  return  to  the  United  States  in  a  publick  vessel. 

"  You  expressed  a  wish  in  your  letter  to  return 
to  America  by  a  national  ship ;  Mr.  Dawson,  who 
brings  over  the  treaty,  and  who  will  present  you 
with  this  letter,  is  charged  with  orders  to  the 
captain  of  the  Maryland  to  receive  and  accom 
modate  you  back,  if  you  can  be  ready  to  depart 
at  such  a  short  warning.  You  will  in  general 
find  us  returned  to  sentiments  worthy  of  former 
times ;  in  these  it  will  be  your  glory  to  have 
steadily  laboured,  and  with  as  much  effect  as 
any  man  living.  That  you  may  live  long  to  con 
tinue  your  useful  labours,  and  reap  the  reward 
in  the  thankfulness  of  nations,  is  my  sincere 
prayer.  Accept  the  assurances  of  my  high  es 
teem,  and  affectionate  attachment. 

"  THOMAS  JEFFERSON." 

Paine  brought  with  him  from  Paris,  and  from 
her  husband,  in  whose  house  he  had  lived,  Mar- 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  227 

garet  Brazier  Bonneville,   and  her  three  sons;       , 
Lewis,  Benjamin,  and  Thomas.     Thomas  has  the  ' 
features,    countenance,    and  temper   of    Paine.    / 
Madame  Bonneville  arrived   at  Baltimore  a  few 
clays  after  her  paramour. 

From  Baltimore  he  went  to  Washington,  in 
order  to  make  his  compliments  to  President  Jef 
ferson  :  he  was  soon' after  followed  by  Madame 
Bonneville  and  her  sons.  His  reception  at  Wash 
ington  was  cold  and  forbidding.  Even  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  received  him  with  politick  circumspection;  and 
such  of  the  members  of  congress  as  suffered  him 
to  approach  them,  did  so  from  motives  of  curios 
ity.  Policy  dictated  this  course.  If  Paine  had 
been  popular,  no  matter  how  despicable  or  how 
wicked,  he  would  have  been  courted,  but  as  he 
was  not,  he  was  shunned.  The  leaders  of  the ' 
party  in  power  were  apprehensive  that  he  would 
write  for  it,  and  they  were  sure  that  if  he  did, 
he  w^ould  injure  it ;  hence  he  was  contemptuously 
neglected  by  them.  His  figure  was  indeed  much 
against  him:  it  was  that  of  a  little  old  man,  bro 
ken  down  by  intemperance,  and  utterly  disre- 
gardful  of  personal  cleanliness.  His  intemperance 
he  could  not  conceal,  nor  had  he,  to  all  appear 
ance,  a  wish  to  conceal  it.  He  was  daily  drunk 
with  his  favourite  brandy,  and  every  body  saw 
or  heard  of  his  intoxication. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

Fearful  as  the  leaders  of  the  party  were  that 
he  would  injure  their  popular  prospects  by  pub 
lishing,  his  pen  could  not  be  restrained.  Suffi 
ciently  intrenched  with  popularity  to  trample 
upon  the  constitution,  to  sanction  political  anar 
chy,  or  to  countenance  irreligion,  Mr.  Jefferson 
had  expressed  a  wish  that  he  would  "  continue 
his  useful  labours,"  and,  in  this  instance  grate 
ful,  he  had  resolved  not  to  disappoint  his  expec 
tations.  Encouraged,  therefore,  by  the  president, 
countenanced  by  the  presence  of  Bonne  ville's 
wife,  and  cheered  with  his  bottle,  he  commenced 
at  Washington  the  publication  of  half  a  dozen 
letters,  addressed  "  to  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States."  These,  except  his  letter  to  Samuel 
Adams,  are  party,  rude,  malignant  effusions. 
In  one  of  them  he  remarks,  with  equal  coarseness, 
impudence,  and  vanity  : — "  The  scribblers  who 
know  me  not,  and  who  fill  their  papers  with 
paragraphs  about  me,  besides  their  want  of  ta 
lents,  drink  too  many  slings  and  drams  in  a  morn* 
ing  to  have  any  chance  with  me."(£)  This  he 
published  at  Washington,  where  it  was  notorious 
that  he  was  in  the  constant  practice  of  drinking 
slings  and  drams,  not  only  in  the  morning,  but 
all  the  day  through. 


Letter  4, 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAJN£. 

His  letter  to  Samuel  Adams  was  in  reply  to  a 
cool  and  cautious  one  which  that  gentleman, 
respected  for  the  services  he  had  rendered  his 
country,  and  interesting  from  the  loss  of  his 
sight,  had  written  to  him  on  the  subject  of  the 
Christian  religion.  "  When,  he  observes,  I  heard 
that  you  had  turned  your  mind  to  a  defence  of 
infidelity,  I  felt  myself  much  astonished  and 
more  grieved,  that  you  had  attempted  a  measure 
so  injurious  to  the  feelings  and  so  repugnant  to 
the  interest  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
Will  you  excite  among  them  the  spirit  of  angry 
controversy  ?  I  am  told  that  some  of  the  news 
papers  have  announced  your  intention  to  publish 
an  additional  pamphlet  on  the  principles  of  your 
Age  of  Reason.  Do  you  think  that  your  pen, 
or  the  pen  of  any  other  man,  can  unchristianize 
the  mass  of  our  citizens  ?  We  ought  to  think 
ourselves  happy  in  the  enjoyment  of  opinion, 
without  the  danger  of  persecution  by  civil  or 
ecclesiastical  law." 

Paine's  answer  wras  returned  through  the  me 
dium  of  the  newspapers !  In  this  he  counterfeits 
a  friendship  for  -Mr.  Adams,  which  he  was  inca 
pable  of  feeling  for  any  human  being.  Rejoicing 
in  the  opportunity  which  the  letter  had  given  him, 
to  propagate  his  deistical  doctrines,  his  answer  is 
full  of  vulgar  sayings  and  impertinent  sneers. 
He  assigns  some  reasons  for  publishing,  sooner 


230  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

than  he  had  originally  intended,  his  Age  of  Rea 
son*  which,  that  his  disciples  in  the  United  States 
might  be  countenanced  and  encouraged,  he  vin 
dicates.  Speaking  of  the  causes  which  induced 
him  to  publish  the  Age  of  Reason  when  he  did, 
he  observes : — "  In  the  first  place,  I  saw  my  life 
in  continual  danger.  My  friends  were  falling  as 
fast  as  the  guillotine  could  cut  their  heads  off; 
and  as  I  every  day  expected  the  same  fate,  I  re 
solved  to  begin  my  work." 

Paine's  memory  was  uncommonly  good,  but 
his  great  want  of  veracity  often  got  the  better 
of  it. 

If  the  reasons  which  he  here  assigns  for  wri 
ting  the  Age  of  Reason  when  he  did  be  true, 
those  which  he  had  assigned  before  are  false. 
The  period  of  which  he  speaks  was  the  year  1 793. 
It  was  then  that  his  friends  were  losing  their 
heads  in  Paris  as  fast  as  the  national  razor  could 
cut  them  off;  it  was  then  that  he  every  day  ex 
pected  the  same  fate.  His  election  to  the  national 
assembly  was  announced  to  him  in  London,  on 
the  13th  of  September,  1792.  On  the  15th  of 
the  same  month,  he  wrote  his  letter  at  Calais, 
addressed  to  Mr.  Dundas.  In  January,  1793, 
the  king  was  decapitated.  In  the  summer  of  the 
same  year,  Robespierre  cut  off  heads  in  gross 
and  without  ceremony.  In  December,  1793, 
Paine  himself  was  imprisoned.  Having  witness- 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS  PAINE.  231 

ed  all  these  catastrophes,  but  his  own,  which 
he  anticipated,  "  I  resolved,  he  adds,  to  begin 
my  work/'  Let  us  compare  this  with  what  fol 
lows. 

In  his  preface  to  the  Age  of  Reason,  part  se 
cond,  is  the  subjoined  passage,  which,  in  another 
place,  and  for  another  purpose,  I  have  quoted. 

"  I  have  already  mentioned,  in  the  former  part 
of  the  Age  of  Reason,  that  it  had  long  been  my 
intention  to  publish  my  thoughts  upon  religion, 
but  that  I  had  originally  reserved  it  to  a  late  period 
of  life,  intending  it  to  be  the  last  work  I  should 
undertake.  Some  circumstances,  however,  which 
existed  in  France  in  the  latter  end  of  the  year 
NINETY,  determined  me  to  delay  it  no  longer.  The 
just  and  humane  principles  of  the  revolution, 
which  philosophy  had  diffused,  had  been  departed 
from/' 

Here,  he  had  "  determined"  in  the  year  1790, 
to  delay  the  work  no  longer,  because  the  humane 
principles  of  the  revolution,  even  then,  had  been 
departed  from. 

But  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Adams,  it  was  not,  he 
says,  until  the  year  1793,  that  '*  I  resolved  to  be 
gin  niy  work,"  and  he  assigns  very  different  rea 
sons  for  it.  These  are,  because  the  heads  of  his 
friends  were  struck  off,  and  because  he  himself 
every  day  expected  the  same  fate.  No  two  ac 
counts  of  the  same  fact  could  be  more  contradic- 


232  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

tory  and  opposite.  The  first  in  date  is  probably 
true,  being  first  written.  The  last,  which  is  not 
true,  was  written  in  the  hope  of  inducing  Mr. 
Adams  to  believe,  that  he  had  something  of  hu 
manity  about  him. 

Having  paid  his  compliments  to  Mr.  Jefferson, 
and  gratified  him  by  "  continuing  his  useful  la 
bours,"  he  left  Washington  for  New-York,  accom 
panied  with  Madame  Bonneville  and  her  sons  :(c) 
he  arrived,  as  I  have  mentioned  in  the  preface. 
He  found  his  farm  at  New-Rochelle  greatly  in 
creased  in  value,  notwithstanding  the  consumable 
part  of  the  mansion  had,  in  the  year  1 790,  been 
accidentally  destroyed  by  fire.  "  Even  in  my 
worldly  concerns,  he  observes,  I  have  been  blessed. 
The  little  property  I  left  in  America  has  been 
encreasing  in  the  value  of  its  capital  more  than 
eight  hundred  dollars  every  year  for  the  fourteen 
years  and  more,  that  I  have  been  absent  from 
it."(rf)  In  another  place  he  remarks  : — "  My 


(c)  Passing  through  Baltimore,   he  was  accosted  by  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Hargrove,  minister  of  a  new  sect  called  the 
New  Jerusalemites.    You  are  Mr.  Paine,  said  Mr.  Hargrove. 
Yes.     My  name  is  Hargrove^  sir,  I  am  minister  of  the  New 
Jerusalem  Church  here.    We,  sir,  explain  the  scripture  in  its 
true  meaning.     The  key   has  been  lost  above  four  thousand 
years,  and  we  have  found  it.      Then,    said  Paiae,  drily,  if 
must  have  been  very  rusty. 

(d)  Letter  4  to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  233 

property  in  this  country  is  now  worth  six  thou* 
sand  pounds  sterling,  which  put  in  the  funds 
will  bring  me  400/.  sterling  a  year."(<?)     Yet  with 
all  this  property,  meanness  and  avarice  would  not 
permit  him  to  remain  at  Lovett's  hotel  more  than  / 
eight  or  ten  days.     During  his  stay,  he  was  visit 
ed  by  the  labouring  class  of  emigrants  from  Eng 
land,  Ireland  and  Scotland,  who   had  there  ad 
mired  his  Rights  of  Man.     With  these  he  drank 
grog  in  the  tap-room,  morning,  noon  and  night. 
Admired  and  praised  by  them,  he  strutted  about,  ' 
or  rather  staggered  about,  showing  himself  to  all 
and  shaking  hands  with  all.     One  day  labourer 
would  say  ;  drink  with  me  Mr.  Paine  ;   another, 
drink  with  me,    and  he  very  condescendingly    S 
gratified  them  all.     The  leaders  of  the  party  to 
which  he  had  attached  himself,  paid  him  no  at 
tention  :    he  was  studiously  avoided  by  them.    ^ 
But  two  or  three  persons  of  any  thing  like  distinc-^ 
tion  publickly  visited  him,  and  seeing  his  vulgari 
ty  and  love  of  liquor,  their  visit  was  short.     He 
complained  of  inattention  without  perceiving  the 
cause.     While  at  Lovett's,  he  fell  over  a  high  * 
stair-case  in  a  paroxysm  of  intoxication.     Being- 


(e)  Letter  to  Thomas  Clio  Rickman,  of  London.  See  the 
London  cd.  1804,  of  his  letters  to  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States. 

EC 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

much  hurt,  it  was  given  out  that  his  fall  was  oc 
casioned  by  an  apoplectick  fit ! 

v/  In  making  his  arrangements  for  a  permanent 
residence  amongst  us,  he  contemplated  the  aban 
donment  of  Madame  Bonneville,  whom  he  had 
seduced  from  her  husband  in  Paris,  and  brought 
amongst  strangers !  Besides  his  estate  at  New- 
Rochelle,  he  had  a  small  house  and  a  few  barren 
acres  at  Bordentown,  New-Jersey.  This  little 
property,  which  he  afterwards  sold  for  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  he  proposed  to  give  to 
her,  and  to  settle  her  upon  it  as  a  school  mistress, 
but  she  resolutely  and  successfully  resisted  his 
unfeeling  project.  For  a  long  time  he  represented 
her  as  the  wife  of  his  friend,  a  republican  printer 
in  Paris,  with  whom  he  had  boarded,  and  who, 
disliking  the  new  order  of  things  under  the  First 
Consul,  was  every  day  expected  to  emigrate  to 

t/  the  United  States.  Those  who  believed  him 
thought  well  of  that  kindness  in  which  his  frieijd's 
wife  and  her  children  had  found  refuge,  but  his 
cruel  treatment  of  her  soon  dissipated  the  delu 
sion,  and  convinced  all  who  knew  him,  that  to 
the  crime  of  seduction,  he  was  adding  that  of  in 
humanity^/) 


.  (./')  The  elder  Bonneville,  about  fourteen,  returned  to  his 
father  in  Paris,  in  the  year  1805.  He  detested  Paine,  and  lad 
as  lie  was,  'Would  scarcely  speak  to  him.  Ah  !  he  would  oftea 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  235 

From  Lovett's  he  went  to  the  house  of 
Mr.  Carver,  farrier,  in  Cedar-street,  whom  I 
have  already  mentioned  ;  an  honest,  faith 
ful,  industrious  man,  who  gratuitously  ac 
commodated  him  for  a  few  weeks.  At  Carver's 
he  finally  concluded  to  live  on  his  farm,  as  soon 
as  he  could  remove  Mr.  Purdy,  the  occupant, 
from  it ;  to  take  the  two  children  with  him,  and 
to  leave  Madame  Bonneville  in  the  city,  to  pro 
vide  for  herself  as  well  as  she  could. 

But  before  his  departure  for  New-Rochelle,  the 
persons  who  had  paid  him  attention  at  Lovett's, 
angry  at  the  neglect  of  the  higher  orders,  were 
anxious  to  testify  their  esteem  for  him  by  giving 
him  a  publick  dinner,  if  a  sufficient  number  could 
be  prevailed  with  to  be  present.  The  intended 
honour  was  mentioned  to  Paine,  who  highly 
approved  of  it,  and  manifested  great  solicitude 
for  its  accomplishment.  After  many  consulta 
tions  on  the  sort  of  dinner  which  could  be  given, 
and  the  sort  of  persons  who  on  such  an  occasion 
would  probably  attend  in  open  day  at  Lovett's, 


say,  Paine  is  not  so  well  known  in  the  United  States  as  in 
Paris.  He  has  broken  up  the  tranquillity  of  my  father's 
house  \  Paine  would  not  pay  his  passage  to  France.  The  boy 
returned  in  a  French  ship,  in  which  his  mother  procured  him 
a  passage  gratis.  Benjamin  and  Thomas  remained  with 
Paine. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

the  proposed  place  of  feasting,  a  subscription  was 
set  on  foot,  and  the  city  canvassed  for  names. 
Two  or  three  weeks  of  diligent  search  and  impor 
tunity  obtained  between  sixty  and  seventy.  The 
dinner  was  therefore  given,  and  Paine  conducted 
from  the  table  as  mellow  as  he  wished  to  be.(^) 

From  Mr.  Carver's,  he  went  in  June,  1 803,  to 
New-Rochelle,  and  boarded  on  his  farm  with  Pur- 
dy,  leaving  Madame  Bonneville  in  the  city.  Un 
protected  and  distressed,  she  followed  him,  after 
the  lapse  of  six  or  seven  weeks,  and  lived  with 
him  and  her  children  at  Purdy's  until  the  fall  of 
the  year,  when  they  all  returned  to  New- York. 


(,§•)  Paine,  as  he  himself  observes,  had  a  taste  and  talent 
for  pcetry.  The  following  effusion  of  fancy,  addressed  to 
Mrs.  Smith,  lady  of  Sir  Robert,  which  he  wrote  in  Paris,  he 
repeated  to  me,  from  memory,  soon  after  his  arrival  in  New- 
York.  He  thus  introduced  the  lines  himself. 

"  Mr.  Paine  corresponded  with  a  lady,  and  dated  his  letters 
from  The  Castle  in  Air,  while  she  addressed  hers  from  The 
Little  Corner  of  the  World.  For  reasons  which  he  knew 
not,*  their  intercourse  was  suddenly  suspended,  and  for  some 
time  he  believed  his  fair  friend  in  obscurity  and  distress.  Many 
years  afterwards,  however,  he  met  her  unexpectedly  at  Paris^ 
in  the  most  affluent  circumstances,  and  married  to  Sir  Robert." 

FROM  THE  CASTLE  IN  AIR, 

TO    THE 

LITTLE  CORNER  OF  THE  WORLD. 

IN  the  region  of  clouds  where  the  whirlwinds  arise, 
My  castle  of  fancy  was  built ; 

*  No  one  but  himself  could  mistake  them.  A  delicate  fe 
male  could  not  bear  his  company. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS  PAINE.  237 

Purdy's  family,  who  were  very  poor ;  Paine,  Ma 
dame  Bonneville,and  her  children,  all  ate  together. 
Paine  had  a  small  room  to  himself.  His  furni 
ture  were  a  miserable  straw  bed,  on  which  he 
slept,  a  small  deal  table,  a  chair,  a  Bible,  and  a 
jug  of  spiritous  liquors.  He  preferred  brandy,  but 
being  too  dear  in  the  country  for  his  penurious  spi 
rit,  he  drank  New-JEngland  Rum.  Sometimes  the 
young  Bonnevilles  went  to  school  at  New-Ro- 
chelle,  but,  generally,  they  rambled  in  the  fields, 
unheeded  and  almost  unnoticed.  Although  Tom 
was  Paine's  favourite,  both  were  always  dirty 
and  shabbily  dressed,  frequently  without  shoes 


The  turrets  reflected  the  blue  of  the  skies, 
And  the  windows  with  sun-beams  were  gilt. 

The  rainbow  sometimes  in  its  beautiful  state, 

Enamell'd  the  mansion  around, 
And  the  figures  that  fancy  in  clouds  can  create 

Supplied  me  with  gardens  and  ground. 

I  had  grottos  and  fountains,  and  orange  tree  groves, 

I  had  all  that  enchantment  has  told  ; 
I  had  sweet  shady  walks  for  the  Gods  and  their  Loves, 

I  had  mountains  of  coral  and  geld, 

But  a  storm  that  I  felt  not,  had  risen  and  roll'd. 

While  wrapp'd  in  a  slumber  I  lay  ; 
And  when  I  look'd  out  in  the  morning,  behold  ! 

My  castle  was  carried  away. 

It  pass'd  over  rivers,  and  vallies,  and  groves, 
The  world,  it  was  all  in  my  view — 


238  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

and  stockings.     In  the  winter,  he  lived  in  Dover- 
street,  a  sort  of  rendezvous  for  sailors. 

In  the  spring  of  1804,  he  returned  to  his 
farm  at  New-Rochelle,  Purdy  having  left  it,  tak 
ing  with  him  the  two  Bonnevilles,  and  leaving  their 
mother  in  the  city.  Not  chusing  to  live  upon  the 
farm  himself,  he  hired  one  Christopher  Derick, 
an  old  man,  to  work  it  for  him.  While  Derick 
was  husbanding  the  farm,  Paine  and  the  two 
young  Bonnevilles  boarded,  sometimes  with  Mr. 
Wilburn,  in  Gold-street,  in  the  city,  but  princi 
pally  with  Mr.  Andrew  A.  Dean,  at  New-Ro 
chelle.  Mrs.  Dean,  with  whom  I  have  conversed, 


I  thought  of  my  friends,  of  their  fates,  of  their  loves,. 
And  often,  full  often,  of  you. 

At  length  it  came  over  a  beautiful  scene, 

That  nature  in  silence  had  made  : 
The  place  was  but  small — but  'twas  sweetly  serene. 

And  chequer'd  with  sunshine  and  shade. 

I  gaz'd  and  I  envied  with  painful  good  will. 

And  grew  tired  of  my  seat  in  the  air  : 
When  all  of  a  sudden  my  castle  stood  still, 

As  if  some  attraction  was  there. 

Like  a  lark  from  the  sky  it  came  fluttering  down. 

And  plac'd  me  exactly  in  view — 
When  who  should  I  meet,  in  this  charming  retreat, 

This  corner  of  calmness — but  you. 

Delighted  to  find  you  in  honour  and  ease, 

I  felt  no  more  sorrow  nor  pain, 
And  the  wind  coming  fair,  I  ascended  the  breeze, 

And  went  back  with  my  castle  again." 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  239 

tells  me  that  he  was  daily  drunk  at  their  house, 
and  that,  in  his  few  sober  moments,  he  was  always 
quarrelling  with  her  and  disturbing  the  peace  of 
the  family.  She  represents  him  as  deliberately 
and  disgustingly  filthy;  as  chusing  Jo  perform 
the  offices  of  nature  in  his  bed !  It  is  not  surpris 
ing,  therefore,  that  she  importuned  her  husband 
to  turn  him  out  of  the  house,  but  owing  to  Mr. 
Dean's  predilection  for  his  political  writings, 
her  importunities  were,  for  several  weeks,  una 
vailing.  Constant  domestick  disquiet  very  natur 
ally  ensued,  which  was  increased  by  Paine's 
peevishness  and  violence.  One  day  he  run  after  * 
Miss  Dean,  a  girl  of  fifteen,  with  a  chair  whip 
in  his  hand,  to  whip  her,  and  would  have  done  so, 
but  for  the  interposition  of  her  mother.  Enraged, 
Mrs.  Dean,  to  use  her  own  language,  "  flew  at 
him."  Paine  retreated  up  stairs  into  his  private 
room,  and  was  swiftly  pursued  by  his  antagonist. 
The  little  drunken  old  man  owed  his  safety  to  the 
bolts  of  his  door.  In  the  fall  of  the  year,  Mrs. 
Dean  prevailed  with  her  husband  to  keep  him  in 
the  house  no  longer.  The  two  Bonne villes  were 
quite  neglected.^) 


(A)  In  July,  he  wrote,  for  Mr.  Carver,  the  following  obscene 
and  impious  lines  on  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ.  If  any  thing 
could  add  to  their  impiety,  it  would  be  the  disgusting  immoral 
ity  and  the  perpetual  turbulence  of  the  man  who  wrote  them* 


240  LIFE  OF   THOMAS  t»AI 

From  Dean'?,  he  went  to  live  on  his  farm.— 
Here  one  of  his  first  acts  was  to  discharge  old 
Derick,  with  whom  he  had  wrangled,  and  to 
whom  he  had  been  a  tyrant,  from  the  moment  of 
their  en^a^ement.  Derick  left  him  with  re 
vengeful  thoughts. 

Being  now  alone,  except  the  company  of  the 
two  Bonnevilles,  of  whom  he  took  but  little  no 
tice,  fond  as  he  was  of  Tom,  he  engaged  an  old 
black  woman  of  the  name  of  Betty,  to  do  his 
housework.  Betty  lived  with  him  but  three 
weeks.  She  seem-  to  have  been  as  intemperate 
as  himself.  Like  her  master,  she  was  every  day 


They  are  printed  from  Point's  hand-writing.  The  life  of  their 
author  is  the  most  powerful  antidote  to  their  infidelity.  A  man 
more  honest,  temperate,  social,  and  just,  could  not,  in  all 
probability,  have  written  them.  The  reader,  when  perusing 
the  lines,  should  carry  along  with  him  the  ideas,  that  while 
writing  them,  Paine  was,  in  all  likelihood,  drunk,  and  that 
he  had  undoubtedly  been  exciting  husband  against  wife,  des 
troying  family  peace,  wrangling  with  all  his  neighbours, 
cheating,  in  his  dealings,  all  whom  he  could  cheat,  and  living 
a  life  distinguished  by  seduction,  by  oppression,  by  beastly  in- 
toxication,  and  by  every  species  of  imposition  and  injustice. 

Commentary  <m  the  Eastern  Wise-Men  travelling  to  Bethle 
hem,  guided  by  a  star,  to  see  the  Little  Jesus  in  the  man 
ger. — Mat.  ch.  2. 

THREE  pedlars  travling  to  a  fair, 
To  see  the  fun  and  what  was  there, 
And  sell  their  merchandise. 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  241 

X 

Paine  would  accuse  her  of  stealing  ~ 
his  New-England  rum,  and  Betty  would  retort 
by  calling  him  an  old  drunkard.  Often,  Mrs. 
Dean  informs  me,  would  they  both  lie  prostrate 
on  the  same  floor,  dead-drunk,  sprawling  and 
swearing  and  threatening  to  fight,  but  incapable 
of  approaching  each  other  to  combat.  Nothing 
but  inability  prevented  a  battle. 

In  the  meanwhile  Madame  Bonneville  was 
boarding  in  the  city  of  New-York  on  the  faith  of 
Paine,  who,  in  November,  wras  brought  up  on  a 
warrant  before  the  justices  of  Uie  justices'  court 


They  stopt  upon  the  road  to  chat, 

Refresh,  and  ask  of  this  and  that, 

That  they  might  be  more  wise. 

And  pray,  the  Landlord  said  to  them, 
Where  go  ye  sirs  ?    To  Bethlehem, 

The  Citizens  replied. 
Ye  are  merchants,  sirs,  to  them  said  he  ; 
We  are,  replied  the  petllars  three, 

And  eastern-men  beside. 

And  pray  what  have  ye  in  your  sacks, 
If  worth  the  while,  I  will  go  snacks  ? 

To  them  quoth  major  domo. 
We've  buttons,  buckles,  spectacles, 
And  every  thing  a  merchant  sells, 

Replied  the  trav'ling  trio. 

These  things  are  very  well,  said  he, 

For  beaux,  a/id  those  who  cannot  see 
F  f 


242  UFE   OF    THOMAS 

for  the  amount  of  her  board.     The  subjoined  mV 
nute  is  copied  from  the  records  of  the  court. 

"  November  20,   1804. 
James  Wilburn,  |  Wammt>  50  dols<    Paulding; 

vs*     .        (  Marshal. 

Thomas  Paine,  } 

Plaintiff,  by  Peter  Paulding,  demands  35  dols. 
for  boarding  Mrs.  Bonne ville,  at  defendant's  re 
quest. 

Defendant  pleads  non-assumpsit. 

Adjourned  till  1 1  o'clock  to-morrow." 


Much  further  than  their  knuckles  ; 
But  Bethlehem  fairs'  for  boys  and  girls 
Who  never  think  of  spectacles. 

And  cannot  buy  your  buckles. 

I  have  a  pack  of  toys,  quoth  he, 
A  trav'ling* merchant  left  with  me, 

Who  could  not  pay  his  score  ; 
And  you  shall  have  them,  on  condition 
You  sell  them  at  a  cheap  commission, 

And  make  the  money  sure. 

There's  one  of  us  will  stay  in  pawn, 
Until  the  other  two  return, 

If  you  suspect  our  faith,  said  they. 
The  Landlord  thought  this  was  a  plan 
To  leave  upon  [his]  hands,  the  man, 

And  therefore  he  said,  nay. 

They  truck'd,  however,  for  the  pack 
Which  one  of  them  took  on  his  back^ 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  243 

e<  November  21. 

Same,  ^ 
vs.     >On  adjournment,  &c. 

Same,  j 

Parties  appear. 

John  Fellows,  witness  for  plaintiff. 

Nonsuit." 

The  court  was  crouded  to  gaze  at  Paine,  who      x 
exhibited  no  signs  'either  of  fear  or  shame.     He 
denied  the  debt  with  incomparable  assurance  and 
intrepidity ;  and  as  the  plaintiff  had  neglected  to 
subpoena  Madame  Bonneville,  to  prove  that  he 


And  off  the  merchants  travell'd  : 
And  here  the  tale  the  Apostles  tol.d, 
Of  wise-men  and  their  gifts  of  gold^ 

Will  fully  be  unravellU 

The  star  iii  the  east  that  shin'd  so  bright 
As  might  be  seen  both  day  and  night, 

If  you  will  credit  them  ; 
It  was  no  other  than  a  sign 
To  a  public  house,  where  pedlars  dine, 

In  East-street,  Bethlehem. 

The  wise-men  were  those  pedlars  three, 
As  you  and  all  the  world  may  see, 

By  reading  to  the  end  ; 
For  commentators  have  mistook 
fn  paraphrasing  of  a  book 

•Thev  did  not  understand. 


244  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

had  promised  her  to  pay  her  board,  the  scanda- 
.  lous  old  man  obtained  a  non-suit.  He  after 
wards,  however,  paid  Mr.  Wilburn's  demand. 
Probably  a  menace  of  a  publick  exposure  in  the 
gazettes  forced  him,  in  this  instance,  to  do  jus 
tice. 

He  now  returned  to  his  farm  at  New-Rochelle, 
taking  with  him  Madame  Bonneville  and  her 
sons.  On  his  arrival,  he  hired  Rachel  Gidney,  a 
black  woman,  to  cook  for  him.  Rachel  made 


Our  Travellers  coming  to  the  house, 
Scarce  fit  to  entertain  a  mouse, 

Inquired  to  have  a  room, 
The  Landlord  said  he  was  not  able 
To  give  them  any  but  the  stable, 

So  many  folks  were  come. 

And  pray  who  have  you  there,  said  they, 
And  how  much  money  must  we  pay, 

For  we  have  none  to  spare  ? 
Why,  there's  one  Joseph,  and  a  wench, 
Who  are  to  go  before  the  bench, 

About  a  love  affair. 

Some  how  or  other,  in  a  manger 
A  child,  expos'd  to  every  danger, 

Was  found  as  it  was  sleeping  ; 
The  girl,  she  swears  that  she's  a  maid, 
So  swears  the  man,  and  I'm  afraid 

On  me  will  fall  the  keeping. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  245 

out  to  stay  with  him  about  two  months.  But  as 
he  never  thought  of  paying  for  services,  or  for 
meat,  or  for  any  thing  else,  Rachel  had  to  sue 
him  for  five  dollars,  the  amount  of  her  wages. 
She  got  out  a  warrant,  on  which  he  was  appre 
hended,  and  Mr.  Shute,  one  of  his  neighbours 
and  political  admirers,  was  his  bail.  The  wages 
were  finally  obtained,  but  he  thought  it  hard  that 
he  should  be  sued  in  a  country  for  which  he  had 
done  so  much  /(/) 


Now,  if  you'll  set  yourselves  about 
To  find  this  knotty  story  out 

I'll  pay  whatever  it  may  be. 
So  in  the  trav'ling  pedlars  went 
To  pay  their  birth-day  compliment, 

And  talk  about  the  baby. 

They  first  unpack'd  their  pack  of  toys, 
Some  for  show  and  some  for  noise, 

But  mostly  for  the  latter  ; 
One  gave  a  rattle,  one  a  whistle, 
And  one  a  trumpet  made  of  gristle, 

To  introduce  the  matter. 

One  squeak'd  away,  the  other  blew, 
The  third  play'd  on  the  rattle  too, 

To  keep  the  bantling  easy, 
And  hence  the  story  comes  to  us 
Of  which  some  people  make  such  fuss 

About  the  eastern  magi. 

(i)  During  Rachel's  stay,  Mr.  Carver,  an  uneducated  man. 


246  LIFfc    OF    THOMAS    PA1SE. 

Derick,  who  could  neither  forget  nor  forgive 
the  ill-usage  he  had  received  from  Paine,  and 
who  like  him  was  revengeful,  atrociously  conspir 
ed,  the  neighbours  say  and  believe,  against  his 
life.  On  Christmas-eve,  1804,  he  borrowed  a 
musket,  and,  just  after  dark,  went  out  with  it 
from  Mr.  Dean's,  with  whom  he  had  lived  since 
his  dismission  by  Paine.  Mrs.  Dean,  who  has 
mentioned  to  me  the  circumstances,  asked  him 
where  he  was  going  with  the  musket  ?  Derick 
replied,  only  to  fire  a  Christmas-eve-salute.  He 
proceeded  towards  Paine 's,  who  lived  hard  by, 


but  a  respectable   citizen,  made  him  a  visit,  which   he  cies^ 
cribes  to  me  in  the  following  communication. 

"  To  MR.  CHEETHAM. 
"  SIR, 

k4  As  you  are  about  writing  the  life  of  Thomas  Paine,  if  you 
think  the  following  remarks  are  worth  noticing,  you  are  at 
liberty  to  publish  them  in  the  work. 

"  During  the  time  that  Mr.  Paine  resided  at  his  own  place,, 
at  New-Rochelle,  I  frequently  paid  him  a  visit,  and  possessing 
a  slight  acquaintance  with  a  minister  of  the  gospel  in  this  ci 
ty,  who  was  friendly  to  Paine's  political  works,  but  had  not 
had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  Mr.  Paine,  although  it  was  his 
wish  to  see  him,  I  informed  the  gentleman  that  in  a  few  days 
I  was  going  to  see  Mr.  Paine,  and  if  he  thought  proper  to  ride 
with  me  in  my  chair,  he  should  be  exceedingly  welcome  :  h,e 
willingly  agreed  to  my  proposition,  and  in  a  few  days  after  we 
set  off  for  New-Rochelle.  At  our  arrival  we  found  the  old 
gentleman,  living  in  a  small  room  like  a  hermit,  and  I  believe 
the  whole  of  the  furniture  in  the  room,  including  a  cot-bed^ 


LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE*  247 

and  who,  having  a  lighted  candle  in  his  room, 
was  sitting  near  the  exposed  window.  In  this 
situation  a  musket  was  iired  at  him,  the  contents 
of  which,  striking  the  bottom  of  the  window 
frame,  where  he  sat,  dropped  down  between  the 
inner  plaster  and  weather-boards  of  the  wooden 
house,  to  the  foundation.  In  a  few  minutes  after 
the  report  of  the  musket,  Derick  returned  to 
Dean's.  He  was  'apprehended,  and  tried  for  the 
offence,  but  acquitted.  Since  Paine's  death, 


was  not  worth  five  dollars  :  Mr.  Paine,  however,  had  the  pa 
liteness  to  invite  us  to  breakfast,  but  I  believe  of  all  the  scenes 
that  my  companion  had  witnessed,  this  was  one  of  the  most 
novel :  Mr.  Paine's  breakfast  cloth,  being   composed  of  old 
news  papers  :  after  the  breakfast  furniture  was  placed  on  the 
table,  the  black  woman  that  was  a  servant  to  Paine,  asked 
him  if  she  was  to  put  fresh  tea  in  the  pot,  his  answer  was  in 
the  affirmative,  the  reason  why  the  servant  made  this  enquiry 
was,  that  Paine's  general  method  was  to  re-dry  the  tea  leaves, 
before  the  fire,  and  have  them  put  in  the  tea-pot  again,  the 
next  time  he  drank  tea  :  this  custom  I  had  often  seen  when  I 
was  at  New-Rochelle,  but  no  where  else  in  my  life  time.    Our 
tea  at  that  time  was  common  bohea,  and  coarse  brown  sugar, 
and  part  of  a  rye  loaf  of  bread,  and  about  a  quarter  of  a  pound 
of  butter  :  the  black  woman  brought  in  a  plate  of  buckwheat 
pancakes,  which  Mr.  Paine  undertook  to  butter;  he  kept  turn 
ing  them  over  and  over  with  his  snuffy  fingers,  so  that  it  aston 
ished  my  companion,   and  prevented  him   from  partaking  of 
them ;  but  the  country  air  having  created  an  appetite  with 
me,  I  ate  heartily  of  them.    After  breakfast,  the   reverend 
gentleman  and  myself  took  a  walk  into  the  fields;  he  accosted 
me  thus:  Mr.  Carver,  I  think  you  are  a  strange  man,  or  you 


248  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE, 

he  has  often  said,  Mrs.  Dean  tells  me,(&)  that 
he  was  sorry  the  musket  did  not  do  execu 
tion,  but  without  mentioning  that  he  fired  it  at 
Paine. 

In  February,  1 805,  he  removed  from  New- 
Rochelle  to  the  city,  where  he  boarded  with  Mr. 
Carver  six  or  eight  weeks.  The  two  Bonnevilles 
he  left  at  school  at  New-Rochelle.  Madame 
Bonneviue  was  stationed  in  a  miserable  garret  in 
Liberty -street.  From  Carver's  he  returned  on 
the  1 3th  of  May,  to  his  farm  at  New-Rochelle. 
In  August  he  again  visited  the  city,  arid  lived 
with  Mr.  Carver  a  few  weeks.  He  proposed  to 
continue  at  Carver's,  but  owing  to  illness  in  the 
family,  he  could  not  be  accommodated.  He 


could  not  have  eat  those  pancakes,  after  the  old  man's  turning 
them  over  and  over  with  his  snuffy  fingers;  besides  neither  his 
hands  or  face  appear  to  have  been  washed  for  twelve  months. 
Why  sir,  said  I  to  him,  I  thought  you  professed  to  be  a  Chris 
tian,  and  the  book  or  scripture  so  called,  that  you  believe  in, 
says,  *  that  which  goeth  into  the  man,  does  not  defile  the  man,' 
I  am,  sir,  your's  respectfully, 

WILLIAM  CARVER." 

,--" 

(£)  My  interviews  with  Mrs.  Dean  have  been  in  the  city, 
where  she  was  on  a  visit  to  her  friends.  I  have  since  conversed 
with  Mr.  Dean,  who  corroborates  all  that  has  been  commu 
nicated  to  me  by  his  wife.  Mr.  Dean  is  a  sensible  man,  and  a 
judicious  observer.  He  is  one  of  the  justices  of  the  peace  for 
the  county. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  249 

therefore  went  back  to  his  farm  at  Nevy-Rochelle, 
and  took  the  two  Bonnevilles  from  school  to  wait 
on  him.  Here  he  remained  until  the  approach 
of  winter,  when  he  came  to  the  city,  and  lived 
at  Glen's,  an  obscure  house,  in  Water-street,  un 
til  March,  1806.(7) 

During  the  summer  of  1 805,  the  pestilential 
fever  raged  in  the  city  of  New- York,  which  be 
came  nearly  evacuated  by  its  inhabitants.  .  The 
garret-residence  of  Madame  Bonneville,  who  was 
in  effect  abandoned  by  Paine,  was  the  focus  of 
the  pestilence.  Unable  to  get  out  of  town,  she 
would  in  all  probability  have  perished  with  hunger, 
but  for  the  pecuniary  aid  which  Mr.  Carver  libe- 


(/)  Before  his  return  to  the  city,  Madame  Bonneville  paid 
him  a  visit,  and  arrived  just  at  candle-light.  She  told  him  she 
had  an  order  which  she  wished  him  to  sign,  for  clothing  for 
herself  and  the  children,  who  were  all,  in  fact,  nearly  naked. 
She  presented  the  order.  Paine  said,  I'll  put  it  in  my  pocket 
and  read  it  in  the  morning.  No,  said  she,  you  must  sign  it 
to  night :  I  want  to  return  and  get  the  things  to-morrow.  I 
cannot  read  in  the  night,  I'll  keep  it  till  morning.  Then,  said 
Madame  Bonneville,  with  some  temper,  if  you  won't  read  it 
to-night,  give  it  me  back.  Paine  resisted  all  her  importuni 
ties  :  he  kept  the  paper  until  the  morning,  when  he  found, 
that  instead  of  an  order  for  clothing,  it  was  a  bond,  duly  drawn, 
for  seven  hundred  pounds.  Quite  enraged,  he  went  to  Mrs. 
Dean's  and  told  her  the  story,  by  whom,  and  by  Mr.  Carver, 
it  is  mentioned  to  me. 


250  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

rally  and  humanely  afforded  her.  Paine  was  ac 
quainted  with  her  condition,  but  he  had  no  feeling, 
At  the  latter  end  of  March,  1806,  he  returned 
to  New-Rochelle.  Unwilling  to  be  at  any  ex 
pense  on  his  farm,  and  unable,  from  the  bad  cha 
racter  which  he  had,  to  procure  a  servant  to  at 
tend  him,  he  boarded,  with  the  two  Bonne villes,  at 
the  Bull's-head,  New-Rochelle,  a  small  tavern  kept 

-    by  Mr.  Jones,  a  Welchman.    He  continued  at  the 
Bull's-head  until  about  the  20th  of  May,  when  the 

\/  Welchman  actually  turned  him  out.  His  increas 
ed  inebriation  and  filth  were  so  offensive  to  Mr. 
Jones,  that  he  could  not  keep  him  in  his  house 
any  longer;  and  as  Paine  knew  not  where  to  go, 
(no  one  in  the  neighbourhood  being  willing  to 
take  him  in)  the  Welchman  was  obliged  to  drive 
him  from  his  habitation. 

He  now,  Mrs.  Dean  informs  me,  returned  to 

l/***^ 

their  house,  and  begged  to  be  admitted  for  a  short 
time.(W)  Mrs.  Dean  made  a  stout  resistance,  but 
at  her  husband's  solicitation,  and  on  Paine's 
promise  that  he  would  not  stay  long,  he  was  per 
mitted  to  enter  the  house.  He  brought  with  him 
a  gallon  of  New-England  rum,  and  in  the  even 
ing  got  so  drunk  that  he  fell  from  his  chair, 
broke  his  nose,  and  sprinkled  the  room  with  his 


(//O  He  had  not  paid  a  farthing  for  his  former  board  at  Mr, 
Dean's,  nor  had  he  when  he  died. 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.. 

blood.  At  the  end  of  the  week,  Mrs.  Dean 
insisted  that  he  should  leave  the  house.  And 
where,  said  the  wretched  old  man,  shall  I 
go?  Nobody  will  take  me  in!  Go  where  you 
will,  she  replied,  you  shall  not  stay  here.  He 
went  to  Mr.  Daniel  Pelton's,  one  of  his  political 
friends,  in  the  neighbourhood,  but  Mrs.  Pelton 
refused  him  admission,  having  accommodated  him 
one  night  before,  and  found  him  exceedingly  of 
fensive.  Repelled  from  house  to  house,  he  finally 
went  back  to  the  Welchman's,  who  gave  him  shel 
ter  on  obtaining  his  promise  that  he  would  not 
stay  longer  than  a  day.  This  wyas  on  the  29th  of 
May.  On  the  first  of  June,  Mr.  Carver  went  to 
Jones's  for  him,  and  brought  him  to  his  house  in 
the  city.  He  remained  until  early  in  the  follow 
ing  November  at  Carver's,  where  he  was  cleaned, 
and  treated  with  the  greatest  kindness.  While  at 
Carver's,  he  sold  his  farm  at  New-Rochelle,  at 
fifty  dollars  an  acre,  to  Mr.  Shute,  who  had  been 
his  bail  in  the  suit  of  Rachel.  The  subjoined 
correspondence  will  elucidate  his  character,  and 
account  for  his  conduct  while  at  Carver's.  Paine's 
letter,  with  its  bad  orthography,  its  pointing,  and 
its  capitals,  is  printed,  literally,  from  his  own 
hand-writing.  I  have  already  said  that  Mr.  Car 
ver  is  an  unlettered  man. 


252  LIFE  OF   THOMAS  PAINE. 

No.  I. 

"  New-York,  Nov.  21,  1806. 
"  CITIZEN  FRIEND, 

"  I  take  this  opportunity  to  inform  you,  that  I 
am  in  want  of  money,  and  should  take  it  as  a  fa- 
vour  if  you  would  settle  your  account ;  you  must 
consider  that  I  have  a  large  family,  and  nothing  to 
support  them  with  but  my  labour.  I  have  made 
ft  calculation  of  my  expenditures  on  your  ac 
count,  the  last  time  that  you  was  at  my  house,  and 
find  that  they  amount  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  or 
sixty  dollars ;  your  stay  was  twenty-two  weeks, 
and  Mrs.  Palmer  twelve  weeks  board  on  your  ac 
count.  I  expect,  therefore,  you  will  have  the  good 
ness  to  pay  me;  for  you  must  recollect  you  was 
with  me  almost  the  whole  of  the  winter  before  last, 
for  which  you  only  gave  me  four  guineas.  If  I, 
like  yourself,  had  an  independent  fortune,  I  should 
not  then  require  one  cent  of  you  j  but  real  neces 
sity,  and  justice  to  my  family,  thus  prompts  me  to 
urge  payment  from  you. 

*'  Your's,  in  friendship, 

«  WILLIAM  CARVER. 
<<  MR.  THOMAS  PAINE." 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  253 

No.  II. 

u  MR.  CARVER, 

"  I  received  your  letter  of  the  21st  inst.  and  as 
there  are  several  mistakes  in  it  I  sit  down  to  cor 
rect  them.  You  say  to  me  in  your  letter — "  You 
must  recollect  you- was  with  me  almost  the  whole 
of  the  winter  before  last,  for  which  you  only  gave 
me  four  guineas."  This  is  a  misstatement  in 
every  part  of  it.  I  paid  you  four  dollars  per  week 
for  the  time  I  was  at  your  house  and  I  told  you 
so  when  I  gave  you  the  money  which  was  in  the 
shop.  I  had  lodged  and  boarded  at  Mr.  Glen's  in 
water  street  before  I  came  to  your  house.  I  paid 
him  five  dollars  per  week,  but  I  had  a  good  room 
with  a  fire  place  and  liquor  found  for  dinner  and 
supper.  At  your  house  I  had  not  the  same  con 
venience  of  a  room  and  I  found  my  own  liquor 
which  I  bought  of  John  Fellows,  so  that  you  were 
paid  to  the  full  worth  of  what  I  had. — As  I  paid 
by  the  week  it  does  not  signify  how  long  or  short 
the  time  was,  but  certainly  it  was  not  "  almost  the 
whole  of  the  winter"  I  had  burnt  out  my  wood 
at  Mr.  Glen's,  and  did  not  chuse  to  buy  a  new 
stock  because  I  wanted  to  go  to  New-Rochelle  to 
get  Purdy  of  the  farm,  I  therefore  came  to  your 
house  in  the  mean  time.  How  does  it  happen  that 


254  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

those  who  receive  do  not  remember  so  well  as 
those  who  pay. 

"  You  say  in  your  letter — "  You  have  made  a 
calculation  of  your  expences  on  my  account 
the  last  time  I  was  at  your  house  and  mid  that 
they  amount  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  sixty 
dollars,  that  I  \vas  22  weeks  and  Mrs.  Palmer 
twelve  weeks  on  my  account." — I  know  not  how 
you  calculate  nor  who  helps  you,  but  I  know 
what  the  price  of  boarding  is.  The  [time]  I  was  at 
your  house  consists  of  two  parts.  First,  from  the 
time  I  came  from  New-Rochelle  till  I  was  taken 
ill  and  from  thence  till  I  came  away  Nov  8d  I 
know  not  exactly  the  tims  I  came  from  New  Ro- 
chelle  but  I  can  know  by  writing  to  Mr.  Shute. 
I  know  it  was  some  short  time  before  the  eclipse 
which  was  the  16  June.  The  time  I  was  taken 
ill  I  can  know  by  refering  to  my  will  which  is  in 
the  hands  of  a  friend. 

You  seem  not  to  know  any  thing  about  the 
price  of  boarding.  John  Fellows  took  board  and 
lodging  for  me  and  Mrs.  Palmer  at  Winships 
Coerlear's  hook  Winship  ask  seven  dollars  per 
week  for  me  and  her.  The  room  I  was  to  have 
was  .a  handsome  spacious  room,  and  Mrs.  Palmer 
wras  to  have  her  room.  At  your  house  I  found 
my  own  bedding  and  the  room  I  had  was  no  other 
than  a  closet  to  the  front  room,  and  Mrs.  Palmer 
had  none,  nor  a  fire  to  come  to  when  the  weather 


MEE   OB   THOMAS   PAINE.  255 

grew  cold.  As  to  myself  I  suffered  a  great  deal 
from  the  cold.  There  ought  to  have  been  a  fire 
in  the  parlour. 

"  The  things  which  Mrs.  Palmer  did  for  me 
were  those  which  belonged  to  the  house  to  do, 
making  the  bed  and  sweeping  the  room ;  and 
when  it  happened  Mrs.  Palmer  was  not  there, 
which  often  happened,  I  had  a  great  deal  of  trou 
ble  to  get  it  done*;  the  black  woman  said  she 
should  not  do  any  thing  but  what  Mrs.  Carver  told 
her  to  do,  and  I  had  sometimes  to  call  John  from 
his  work  to  do  the  servant  woman's  work  and 
your  wife  knew  it.  Sometimes  the  room  became 
so  dirty  that  people  that  came  to  see  me  took  no 
tice  of  it  and  wondered  I  staid  in  such  a  place. 

"  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  you  when  you 
say  "  I  have  made  a  calculation  of  my  expendi 
tures  on  your  account  and  find  they  amount  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  or  sixty  dollars."  Why  did 
you  not  send  me  the  particulars  of  that  expendi 
ture  that  I  might  know  if  those  particulars  were 
true  or  false  ? — The  expence,  however,  that  you 
were  at  on  my  account  was  the  addition  of  on© 
more  to  your  family  than  had  before  I  came  and 
no  more,  except  for  the  time  Mrs.  Palmer  was 
there,  which  was  not  twelve  weeks-)  and  your 
wife  often  called  her  down  to  cut  out  and  make 
things  for  herself  and  the  children.  I  had  tea 
with  brown  sugar  and  everything  else  in  common 


256  B1FE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

with  the  fare  of  the  kitchen,  so  that  unless  I  eat 
more  than  any  body  else  I  was  of  no  more  ex 
pense  than  any  body  else.  What  liquor  I  had  I 
sent  out  for  myself,  on  what  ground  then  is  your 
calculation  founded.  I  suppose  the  case  is  that 
you  have  been  a  good  deal  cheated  and  your  wife 
and  son  try  to  make  you  believe  that  the  expence 
has  been  incurred  upon  my  account. 

"  I  had  written  thus  far  on  the  Sunday  evening 
when  Mr.  Butler  called  to  see  me  and  I  read  it  to 
him  and  also  your  letter  and  I  did  the  same  to 
John  Fellows  who  came  afterwards.  Any  body 
seeing  your  letter  and  knowing  nothing  further 
would  suppose  that  I  kept  you  out  of  a  great  deal 
of  property  and  would  not  settle  the  account. 
Whereas  the  case  is  that  I  told  you  the  last  time 
you  carne  for  money,  and  I  gave  you  ten  dollars, 
that  I  did  not  chuse  to  pay  any  more  till  the  ac 
count  was  settled,  you  ought  therefore  to  have 
come  for  that  purpose  instead  of  writing  the  letter 
you  did  which  contains  no  account  at  all. 

"  I  did  not  like  the  treatment  I  received  at  your 
house.  In  no  case  was  it  friendly  and  in  many 
cases  not  civil,  especially  from  your  wife.  She 
did  not  send  me  my  tea  or  coffee  till  every  body 
else  was  served,  and  many  times  it  was  not  fit  to 
drink. 

"  As  to  yourself  you  ought  not  to  have  left  me 
the  night  I  was  struck  with  the  appoplexy.  I  find 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  257 

you  came  up  in  the  night  and  opened  the  little 
cupboard  and  took  my  watch — Did  you  take  any 
thing  else? 

I  shall  desire  John  Fellows  and  Mr.  Morton  to 
call  on  you  and  settle  the  account  and  then  I  de 
sire  that  all  communication  between  you  and  me 
may  cease. 

Butler  called  on  me  last  evening,  tuesday,  and 
told  me  of  your  goings  on  at  Mustin's(w)  on  the 
Sunday  night.  I  did  not  think,  carver,  you  were 
such  an  unprincipled  false  hearted  man  as  I  find 
you  to  be ;  but  I  am  glad  I  have  found  it  out  time 
enough  to  dispossess  you  of  all  trust  I  reposed  in 
you  when  I  made  my  will,(o)  and,  of  every  thing 
else  to  which  your  name  is  there  mentioned. 

«  THOMAS  PAINE. 

*  NewYork,  Nov.  25,  '06." 

No.  III. 

"  MR.  THOMAS  PAINE, 
«  I  received  your  letter  dated  the  25th  ult.  in 


(n)  A  tavern  in  Little  George-street.  Paine  gave  his  letter 
to  Walter  Morton,  who  took  it  to  Mustin's  and  read  it  in  the 
tap-room. 

(o)  He  afterwards  "  dispossessed'^  John  Fellows,  to  whom  hs 
had  bequeathed  something.  I  know  not  how  many  wills  he 
made,  for  he  "  dispossessed"  his  friends  as  often  as  he  quar 
relled  with  them,  which  was  continually, 

Hh 


258  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAIKE. 

answer  to  mine  dated  Nov.  21,  and  after  minutely 
examining  its  contents,  I  found  that  you  had  taken 
the  pitiful  ground  of  subterfuge  and  lying  for 
your  defence.  You  say  that  you  paid  me  four 
dollars  per  week  for  your  board  and  lodging, 
(luring  the  time  that  you  were  with  me,  prior  to 
the  first  of  June  last ;  which  \vas  the  day  that  I 
went  by  your  order  to  bring  you  to  York,  from 
New-Rochelle.  It  is  fortunate  for  me,  that  I  have 
a  living  evidence  that  saw  you  give  me  four  gui 
neas  and  no  more,  in  my  shop,  at  your  departure 
at  that  time ;  but  you  said  you  would  have  given 
me  more,  but  that  you  had  no  more  with  you  at 
present.  You  say,  also,  that  you  found  your  o\vn 
liquors  during  the  time  you  boarded  with  me ;  but 
you  should  have  said,  "  I  found  only  a  small  part 
of  the  liquor  I  drank  during  my  stay  with  you ; 
this  part  I  purchased  of  John  Fellows,  which  was 
a  demijohn  of  brandy  containing  four  gallons,  and 
this  did  not  serve  me  three  weeks."  This  can  be 
proved,  and  I  mean  not  to  say  any  thing  that  I 
cannot  prove ;  for  I  hold  truth  as  a  precious  jewel. 
It  is  a  well  known  fact,  that  you  drank  one  quart 
of  brandy  per  day,  at  my  expence,  during  the 
different  times  you  have  boarded  with  me,  the 
demijohn  above-mentioned  excepted,  and  the  last 
fourteen  weeks  you  were  sick.  Is  not  this  a  sup 
ply  of  liquor  for  dinner  and  supper  ?  As  for 
what  you  paid  Mr.  Glen  or  any  other  person,  that 


LUTE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

is  nothing  to  me.  I  am  not  paid,  and  found  you 
room  and  firing  besides.  You  say  as  you  paid  by 
the  week  it  matters  not  how  long  my  stay  was. 
I  accede  to  your  remark,  that  the  time  of  your 
stay  at  my  house  would  have  been  of  no  matter, 
if  I  had  been  paid  by  the  week,  but  the  matter  is 
otherwise.  I  have  not  been  paid  at  all,  or  at  least, 
a  very  small  part ;  prove  that  I  have  if  you  can, 
and  then  I  shall  be  viewed  by  my  fellow  citizens 
in  that  contemptible  light  that  they  will  view  you 
in,  after  the  publication  of  this  my  letter  to  you.(/>) 
You  ask  me  the  question,  "  How  is  it  that  those 
who  receive,  do  not  remember  as  well  as  those 
that  pay  ?"  My  answer  is,  I  do  remember,  and 
shall  give  you  credit  for  every  farthing  I  have  re 
ceived,  and  no  more.  I  will  ask  you  what  con 
solation  you  derive  to  your  mind  in  departing 
from  truth,  and  endeavouring  to  evade  paying  a 
just  and  lawful  debt.  I  shall  pass  over  a  great 
part  of  your  letter  with  silent  contempt,  and  op 
pose  your  false  remarks  with  plain  truths.  As 
the  public  will  see  your  letter  as  well  as  mine, 
they  w7ill  be  able  to  judge  your  conduct  and  mine 
for  themselves.  You  say  that  I  seem  not  to  know 
any  thing  about  the  price  of  boarding  in  the  city; 
but  I  know  the  price  is  from  three  dollars  to  five, 


(//)  This  is  the  first  time  the  letter  has  been  published. 


2b'0  LIFE  OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

and  from  that  to  ten  ;  with  additional  charge  if 
the  boarder  should  be  sick  for  three  months  or 
upwards.  J  shall  show  you  how  I  calculate  my 
expenditures,  by  the  bill  that  will  be  rendered  to 
you,  and  I  believe  it  will  be  an  important  lesson 
to  those  that  may  undertake  to  board  you  here 
after.  I  have  no  person  to  help  me  to  calculate 
or  write,  but  fortunately  took  the  advice  of  a 
friend,  and  got  him  to  keep  an  account  of  all  the 
times  you  stayed  with  me.  You  assert  that  your 
being  at  my  house  only  added  one  more  to  the 
family ;  I  shall  prove  that  it  added  to  the  number 
of  three.  You  know  very  well  when  you  came, 
I  told  you  I  must  hire  a  servant  girl  if  you  staid 
with  me.  This  I  did  for  five  months,  at  five  dol 
lars  per  month  and  her  board.  This  I  should  not 
have  done,  unless  you  had  given  me  ground  to 
believe  you  would  have  paid  me.  After  your  de 
parture  she  was  discharged.  Now,  sir,  how  will 
you  go  to  prove  that  yourself,  and  Mrs.  Palmer 
and  the  servant  girl  are  one  ?  In  order  to  do  this, 
you  must  write  a  new  system  of  mathematics. 
You  complain  that  I  left  your  room  the  night  that 
you  pretend  you  were  seized  with  the  apoplexy ; 
but  I  had  often  seen  you  in  those  fits  before,  and 
particularly  after  drinking  a  large  portion  of  ar 
dent  spirits,  those  fits  have  frequently  subjected 
you  to  falling.  You  remember  you  had  one  of 
fchem  at  Lovett's  Hotel,  and  fell  from  the  top  of 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  261 

the  stairs  to  the  bottom.  You  likewise  know  I 
have  frequently  had  to  lift  you  from  the  floor  to 
the  bed.  You  must  also  remember  that  you  and 
myself  went  to  spend  the  evening  at  a  certain  gen 
tleman's  house,  whose  peculiar  situation  in  life 
forbids  me  to  make  mention  of  his  name ;  but  I 
had  to  go  to  apologize  for  your  conduct;  you 
had  two  of  those  falling  fits  in  Broadway,  before 
I  could  get  you  home. 

"  You  tell  me  that  I  came  up  stairs  in  the  night 
and  opened  the  cupboard,  and  took  your  watch  : 
this  is  one  more  of  your  lies  ;  for  I  took  it  dur 
ing  the  time  your  room  was  full  of  different  des 
criptions  of  persons,  called  from  a  porter  house ' 
and  the  street,  at  the  eleventh  hour  of  the  night 
to  carry  you  up  stairs.  After  you  had  fallen  over 
the  banisters,  and  the  cupboard  door  was  open, 
and  the  watch  lay  exposed ;  I  told  you  the  next 
morning  I  put  your  watch  in  my  desk,  and  you 
said  I  had  done  right.  Why  did  not  you  com 
plain  before  ?  I  believe  that  I  should  do  the  same 
again  or  any  other  person  in  my  situation ;  for 
had  the  watch  been  lost  you  would  have  thought 
that  I,  or  some  one  of  my  family  had  got  it.  I 
believe  it  will  not  be  in  your  power  to  make  one 
of  my  fellow  citizens  believe,  that  at  this  period 
of  life,  I  should  turn  rogue  for  an  old  silver 
watch. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

"  You  go  on  and  say,  '  did  you  take  any  thing 
else  ?'  Have  you  assumed  the  character  of  a  fa 
ther  confessor  as  well  as  a  son  of  Bacchus  ?  Did 
you  lose  any  thing  ?  Why  do  you  not  speak  out  ? 
You  have  been  so  long  accustomed  to  lying,  one 
more  will  not  choak  you.  Now,  sir,  I  have  to  in 
form  you  I  lost  a  silver  spoon  that  was  taken  to 
your  room,  and  never  returned.  Did  you  take 
that  away  with  you  ?  If  not,  I  can  prove  that  you 
took  something  else  of  my  property  without  my 
consent.  You  likewise  gave  a  French  boy  that 
you  imported  to  this  country,  or  was  imported 
on  your  account,  a  nice  pocket  bottle  that  was 
neither  yours  nor  mine  ;  it  being  the  property  of 
a  friend,  and  has  since  been  called  for ;  I  lent 
the  bottle  to  you,  at  the  time  you  was  sick  with 
what  you  call  apoplexy,  but  what  myself  and 
others  know  to  be  nothing  more  than  falling 
drunken  fits.  I  have  often  wondered  that  a 
French  woman  and  three  children  should  leave 
France  and  all  their  connexions  to  follow  Thom 
as  Paine  to  America.  Suppose  I  were  to  go  to 
niy  native  country,  England,  and  take  another 
wife  arid  three  children  of  his,  and  leave 


^ 

/  my  wife  and  family  in  this  country.   What  would 
.    be  the  natural  conclusion  in  the  minds  of  the 
people,  but  that  there  was  some  criminal  con 
nexion  between  the  woman  and  myself?  You 
have  often  told  me  that  the  French  woman  above 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE*  263 

alluded  to,  has  never  received  one  letter  from 
her  husband  during  the  four  years  she  has  been 
in  this  country.  How  comes  this  to  pass  ?  per 
haps  you  can  explain  the  matter.  I  believe  you 
have  broken  up  the  domestic  tranquillity  of  se 
veral  families,  with  whom  you  have  resided; 
and  I  can  speak  by  experience  as  to  my  own. — 
I  remember  you  undertook  to  fall  out  with  my 
former  wife,  and  one  of  the  foolish  epithets  you 
attempted  to  stigmatize  her  with,  was,  that  she 
originally  was  only  in  the  character  of  a  servant. 
Was  this  a  judicious  remark  of  the  '  Author  of 
the  Rights  of  Man  ?'  I  well  remember  the  reply 
she  made  you,  which  was  that  you  had  not  much 
to  boast  of  on  that  ground,  as  yourself  had  been 
a  servant  to  the  British  government.  And  now 
again  you  try  to  break  up  our  tranquillity,  by  in 
sinuating  that  my  wife  and  son  have  deprived  me 
of  my  property.  I  call  this  pitiful  employment 
for  a  man  that  calls  himself  a  philanthropist. — 
When  you  tell  me  that  Mrs.  Palmer  did  the 
work  belonging  to  my  family,  you  know  the  as 
sertion  to  be  false ;  w7hich  can  be  proved  by  her 
and  others  that  resided  in  the  house.  You  have 
written  well  on  just  and  righteous  principles,  and 
dealt  them  out  to  others  ;  but  totally  deny  them 
in  practice  yourself;  and  for  my  part  I  believe 
you  never  possessed  them.  An  old  acquaintance 
of  your's  and  mine  called  on  me  a  few  days  ago. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

I  asked  him  if  he  had  been  to  see  you  ?  His  an 
swer  was,  he  had  not,  neither  did  he  want  to  see 
x  you. (2)  He  said  he  believed  that  you  had  a 
VVX  good  head,  but  a  very  bad  heart.  I  believe  he 
gave  a  true  description  of  your  character  in  a 
few  words :  it  has  been  my  opinion  for  some 
time  past,  and  many  more  of  those  you  think 
are  your  friends,  that  all  you  have  written  has 
been  to  acquire  fame  and  not  the  love  of  princi 
ple  ;  and  one  reason  that  led  us  to  think  as  we 
do,  is,  that  all  your  works  are  stuffed  with  ego 
tism.  You  say  farther,  that  you  were  not  treated 
friendly  during  your  stay  with  me,  and  hardly 
civilly.  Have  you  lost  all  principles  of  gratitude, 
as  well  as  those  of  justice  and  honesty,  or  did  you 
never  possess  one  virtue  ? 

From  the  first  time  I  saw  you  in  this  country, 
to  the  last  time  of  your  departure  from  my  house, 
my  conscience  bears  me  testimony  that  I  treated 
you  as  a  friend  and  a  brother,  without  any 
hope  of  extra-rewards,  only  the  payment  of  my 
just  demand.  I  often  told  many  of  my  friends, 
had  you  come  to  this  country  without  one  cent 
of  property,  then,  as  long  as  I  had  one  shilling, 
you  should  have  a  part.  I  declare  when  I  first 


(<7)  Admiral  Landay,  a  French  gentleman,  who  knew  Paine 
in  France,  and  who  was  in  the  naval  service  of  the  United 
States,  during  the  revolution. 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

saw  you  here,  I  knew  nothing  of  your  posses 
sions,  or  that  you  were  worth  four  hundred  per 
year,  sterling.  I,  sir,  am  not  like  yourself.  I 
do  not  bow  down  to  a  little  paltry  gold,  at  the  sa 
crifice  of  just  principles.  I,  sir,  am  poor,  with  an 
independent  mind,  which  perhaps  renders  me 
more  comfort,  than  your  independent  fortune  ren 
ders  you.  You  tell  me  further,  that  I  shall  be  ex 
cluded  from  any  thing,  and  every  thing,  contain 
ed  in  your  will.  All  this  I  totally  disregard.  I 
believe  if  it  was  in  your  power  you  would  go  fur 
ther,  and  say  you  would  prevent  my  obtaining 
the  just  and  lawful  debt  that  you  contracted  with 
me ;  for  when  a  man  is  vile  enough  to  deny  a 
debt,  he  is  not  honest  enough  to  pay  without  be 
ing  compelled.  I  have  lived  fifty  years  on  the 
bounty  and  good  providence  of  my  Creator,  and 
I  do  not  doubt  the  goodness  of  his  will  concern 
ing  me.  I  likewise  have  to  inform  you,  that  I 
totally  disregard  the  powers  of  your  mind  and 
pen ;  for,  should  you,  by  your  conduct,  permit 
this  letter  to  appear  in  public,  in  vain  may  you 
attempt  to  print  or  publish  any  thing  afterwards. 
Do  look  back  to  my  past  conduct  respecting  you, 
and  try  if  you  cannot  raise  one  grain  of  grati 
tude  in  your  heart,  towards  me,  for  all  the  kind 
acts  of  benevolence  I  bestowed  on  you.  I 
showed  your  letter,  at  the  time  I  received  it,  to 
an  intelligent  friend ;  he  said  it  was  a  character- 

T  i 


366  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

istic  of  the  vileness  of  your  natural  disposition, 
and  enough  to  damn  the  reputation  of  any  man. 
You  tell  me  that  I  should  have  come  to  you,  and 
not  written  the  letter.  I  did  so  three  times  ;  and 
the  last  you  gave  me  the  ten  dollars,  and  told 
me  you  were  going  to  have  a  stove  in  a  separate 
room,  and  then  you  would  pay  me.  One  month 
had  passed  and  I  wanted  the  money,  but  still 
found  you  with  the  family  that  you  reside  with ; 
and  delicacy  prevented  me  to-ask  you  for  pay  of 
board  and  lodging  ;  you  never  told  me  to  fetch 
the  account,  as  you  say  you  did.  When  I  call 
ed  the  last  time  but  one,  you  told  me  to  come 
on  the  Sunday  following,  and  you  would  pay  or 
settle  with  me  ;  I  came  according  to  order,  but 
found  you  particularly  engaged  with  the  French 
woman  and  her  two  boys ;  whether  the  boys  are 
yours,  I  leave  you  to  judge ;  but  the  oldest  son 
of  the  woman,  an  intelligent  youth,  I  suppose 
about  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of  age,  has  fre 
quently  told  me  and  others,  that  you  were  the 
complete  ruin  of  their  family,  and  that  he  de 
spised  you;  and  said  that  your  character,  at 
present,  was  not  so  well  known  in  America  as 
France. 

"  You  frequently  boast  of  what  you  have  done 
for  the  woman  above  alluded  to  ;;  that  she  and  her 
family  have  cost  you  two  thousand  dollars ;  and 
since  you  came  the  last  time  to  York,  you  have 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  267 

been  bountiful  to  her,  and  given  her  one  hundred 
dollars  per  time.  This  may  be  all  right.  She 
may  have  rendered  you  former  and  present  secret 
services,  such  as  are  not  in  my  power  to  perform  - 
but  at  the  same  time  I  think  it  would  be  just  in 
you  to  pay  your  debts.  I  know  that  the  poor 
black  woman,  at  New-Rochelle,  that  you  hired  as 
a  servant,  and  I  believe  paid  every  attention  to 
you  in  her  power,  had  to  sue  you  for  her  wages, 
before  you  would  pay-her,  and  Mr.  Shute  bad  to 
become  security  for  you. 

A  respectable  gentleman,(r)  from  New-Ro 
chelle,  called  to  see  me  a  few  days  past,  and  said 
that  every  body  was  tired  of  you  there,  and  no 
one  wrould  undertake  to  board  and  lodge  you.  I 
thought  this  was  the  case,  as  I  found  you  at  a  tav 
ern,^)  in  a  most  miserable  situation.  You  appear-- 
ed  as  if  you  had  not  been  shaved  for  a  fortnight, 
and  as  to  a  shirt,  it  could  not  be  said  that  you 
had  one  on ;  it  was  only  the  remains  of  one,  and 
this  likewise  appeared  not  to  have  been  off  your 
back  for  a  fortnight,  and  was  nearly  the  colour 
of  tanned  leather,  and  you  had  the  most  disagree 
able  smell  possible ;  just  like  that  of  our  poor  beg- 


(r)  Mr.  Shutc,  who  was  afterwards  a  justice  of  the  county. 
(s}  Jones's,  the  Welchman. 


268  LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

gars  in  England.  Do  you  not  recollect  the  pains 
v  I  took  to  clean  you?  That  I  got  a  tub  of  warm 
water  and  soap,  and  washed  you  from  head  to 
foot,  and  this  I  had  to  do  three  times,  before  I 
could  get  you  clean.  I  likewise  shaved  you  and 
cut  your  nails,  that  were  like  birds  claws.  I  re 
member  a  remark  that  I  made  to  you  at  that  time, 
which  was,  that  you  put  me  in  mind  of  Nebu 
chadnezzar,  who  is  said  to  be  in  this  situation. 
Many  of  your  toe  nails  exceeded  half  an  inch  in 
length,  and  others  had  grown  round  your  toes, 
and  nearly  as  far  under  as  they  extended  on  the 
/  top.  Have  you  forgotten  the  pains  I  took  with 
you,  when  you  lay  sick,  wallowing  in  your  own 
filth  ?  I  remember  that  I  got  Mr.  Hooton,  (a 
friend  of  mine,  and  whom  I  believe  to  be  one  of 
the  best  hearted  men  in  the  world)  to  assist  me  in 
removing  and  cleaning  you.  He  told  me  he  won 
dered  how  I  could  do  it ;  for  his  part  he  would 
not  like  to  do  the  same  again  for  ten  dollars.  I 
told  him  you  were  a  fellow  being,  and  that  it  was 
our  duty  to  assist  each  other  in  distress.  Have 
you  forgotten  my  care  of  you  during  the  winter 
you  staid  with  me  ?  How  I  put  you  in  bed  every 
night,  with  a  warm  brick  to  your  feet,  and  treat 
ed  you  like  an  infant  one  month  old  ?  Have  you 
forgotten  likewise  how  you  destroyed  my  bed  and 


LJFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  269 

bedding  by  fire,(>)  and  also  a  great  coat  that  was 
worth  ten  dollars.  I  have  shown  the  remnant  of 
the  coat  to  a  tailor,  who  says  that  cloth  of  that 
quality  could  not  be  bought  for  six  dollars  per 
yard.  You  never  said  that  you  were  sorry  for 
the  misfortune,  or  said  that  you  would  recom 
pense  me  for  it.  I  could  say  a  great  deal  more, 
but  I  shall  tire  your  and  the  public's  patience ; 
after  all  this  and  ten  times  as  much  more,  you 
say  you  were  not  treated  friendly  or  civilly. 
Have  I  not  reason  to  exclaim,  and  say,  O  the 
ingratitude  of  your  obdurate  heart ! 

"  You  complain  of  the  room  you  were  in,  but 
you  know  it  was  the  only  one  I  had  to  spare  - 
it  is  plenty  large  enough  for  one  person  to  sleep 
in.  Your  physician  and  many  others  requested 
you  to  remove  to  a  more  airy  situation,  but  I 
believe  the  only  reason  why  you  would  not  com 
ply  with  the  request  was,  that  you  expected  to 
have  more  to  pay,  and  not  to  be  so  well  attended; 
you  might  think  nobody  would  keep  a  fire,  as  I 


(*)  One  day  in  winter,  just  after  dinner,  when  lie  had  drank 
rather  more  than  his  usual  potion  of  brandy,  he  o\  erheated 
the  brick  which,  wrapped  up  in  cloth,  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
putting  to  his  feet  Avhen  he  lay  down.  The  brick  communi 
cated  fire  to  the  bed.  The  smell  of  fire  led  Mr.  Carver  to  his 
room,  the  door  of  which  he  broke  open,  and  dragged  Paine 
out  of  it.  Mr.  Carver  tells  me  that  five  minutes  longer  would 
have  terminated  his  existence. 


270  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE, 

did,  in  the  kitchen,  till  11  or  12  o'clock  at  night, 
to  warm  things  for  your  comfort,  or  take  you 
out  of  bed  two  or  three  times  a  day,  by  a  blanket, 
as  I  and  my  apprentice  did  for  a  month ;  for  my 
part  I  did  so  till  it  brought  on  a  pain  in  my  side, 
that  prevented  me  from  sleeping  after  I  got  to 
bed  myself. 

I  remember  during  one  of  your  stays  at  my 
house  you  were  sued  in  the  justice's  court,  by  a 
poor  man,  for  the  board  and  lodging  of  the 
French  woman,  to  the  amount  of  about  thirty 
dollars,  but  as  the  man  had  no  proof,  and 
only  depended  on  your  word,  he  was  nonsuit 
ed,  and  a  cost  of  forty-two  shillings  thrown  upon 
him.  This  highly  gratified  your  unfeeling  heart. 
I  believe  you  had  promised  payment,  as  you  said 
you  would  give  the  French  woman  the  money 
to  go  and  pay  it  with.  I  know  it  is  customary 
in  England,  that  when  any  gentleman  keeps  a 
lady,  that  he  pays  her  board  and  lodging.  You 
complain  that  you  suffered  with  the  cold,  and 
that  there  ought  to  have  been  a  fire  in  the  par 
lour.  But  the  fact  is,  that  I  expended  so  much 
money  on  your  account,  and  received  so  little, 
that  I  could  not  go  to  any  further  expense,  and 
if  I  had,  I  should  not  have  got  you  away.  A 
friend  of  your's(?/)  that  knew  my  situation,  told 

n]  Mr.  John  Fellows, 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  271 

you  that  you  ought  to  buy  a  load  of  wood  to 
burn  in  the  parlour;  your  answer  was,  that  you 
should  not  stay  above  a  week  or  two,  and  did 
not  want  to  have  the  wood  to  remove  ;  this  cer 
tainly  would  have  been  a  hard  case  for  you,  to 
have  left  me  a  few  sticks  of  wood. 

Now,  sir,  I  think  I  have  drawn  a  complete 
portrait  of  your  character;  yet  to  enter  upon 
every  minutia  would  be  to  give  a  history  of  your 
life,  and  to  develope  the  fallacious  mask  of  hy 
pocrisy  and  deception,  under  which  you  have 
acted  in  your  political  as  well  as  moral  capacity 
of  life.  There  may  be  many  grammatical 
errours  in  this  letter.  To  you  I  have  no  apolo 
gies  to  make ;  but  I  hope  the  candid  and  impar 
tial  public  will  not  view  them  "  with  a  critick's 
eye." 

WILLIAM  CARVER. 
Thomas  Paine,  New-York,  Dec.  2, 1806. 

Mr.  Carver's  description  of  Paine's  filthiness, 
which  was  notorious,  is  very  unequal  to  the 
reality.  Fancy  cannot  picture  an  object  so 
offensive  to  sense.  No  father  could  have  been 
more  kind  and  attentive  to  his  degraded  and  lost 
child.  Such  services  as  Mr.  Carver's  may  be 
gratefully  remembered,  but  they  cannot  be  com 
pensated  with  money.  Paine  had  not,  however. 
in  his  heart,  a  place  for  gratitude  ;  and  as  to  the 


272  LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

golden  rule  of  justice,  he  disregarded  it  in  prac 
tice.  To  have  set  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Carver  at  vari 
ance,  and  destroyed  their  peace  forever,  by 
accusing  the  latter,  in  conjunction  with  her  son, 
of  fraud,  would  have  been  much  more  pleasing 
to  him,  than  the  observance  of  equity  between 
^  man  and  man.  If  to  the  infamy  of  his  conduct, 
in  this  particular,  any  thing  could  be  added,  it 
would  be,  that  the  charge  of  cheating,  which  he 
brings  against  Mrs.  Carver  and  her  son,  was  ad- 
.  vanced  to  cover  his  own  injustice.(^) 

Soon  after  the  date  of  Mr.  Carver's  rejoinder, 
his  demand  was  paid  by  Paine,  through  Mr.  John 
Fellows  and  Mr.  Walter  Morton. 


(t>)  While  at  Carver's,  drinking  his  quart  of  brandy  a  day, 
and  suffering  Madame  Bonneville  to  procure  a  livelihood  as 
she  could,  or  to  perish  of  want,  he  wrote  the  following  im 
piety. 

THE  STRANGE  STORY  OF  KORAH,  DATHAN,  AND 
ABIRAM,  NUMBERS,  CHAPTER  XVI.  ACCOUNT 
ED  FOR. 

OLD  ballads  sing  of  Chevy  Chase, 

Beneath  whose  rueful  shade, 
Full  many  a  valiant  man  was  slain, 

And  many  a  widow  made. 

But  I  will  tell  of  one  much  worse. 

That  happ'd  in  days  of  yore, 
All  in  the  barren  wilderness, 

Beside  the  Jordan  shore- 


LIFE   OP   THOMAS   PAINE.  273 

From  Mr.  Carver's,  he  went  to  live  with  the 
ingenious  Mr.  Jarvis,  portrait-painter,  in  Church- 
street.  Mr.  Jarvis,  unmarried,  kept  what  is  call 
ed  Bachelor's  Hall.  Here  he  lived  five  months. 
Whether  his  correspondence  with  Mr.  Carver  had 
tended  to  reform  his  conduct  or  not,  I  do  not 
know,  but  Mr.  Jarvis  tells  me  that  it  was  better  at 
his  house  than  coinmon  fame  had  previously  re 
presented  it.  His  temper  was  by  nature  sour,  and 
age,  with  the  buffets  he  had  met  with  in  journey 
ing  through  life,  had  made  him  exceedingly  peev 
ish  :  yet,  Mr.  Jarvis  says,  he  was  perfectly  man 
ageable  by  art,  patiently  and  assiduously  applied. 


Where  Moses  led  the  people  forth, 

Call'd  chosen  tribes  of  God, 
And  fed  them  forty  years  with  quail,, 

And  rul'd  them  with  a  rod. 

A  dreadful  fray  once  rose  among 
These  self-named  tribes  of  I  AM, 

Where  Korah  fell,  and  by  his  side, 
Fell  Dathan  and  Abiram. 

An  earthquake  swallowed  thousands  up, 
And  fire  came  down  like  stones, 

Which  slew  their  sons  snd  daughters  all, 
Their  wives  and  little  ones. 

'Twas  all  about  old  Aaron's  tithes, 
This  murderous  quarrel  rose, 

For  tithes  are  worldly  things  of  old, 
That  lead  from  words  to  blows, 
K  k 


274  LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE, 

He  was  easily  put  into  a  passion ;  he  was  easily 
calmed.  He  did  not  constantly  drink  to  excess, 
yet  he  frequently  got  excessively  tipsey.  Once  Mr. 
Jarvis  knew  him  to  abstain  from  liquor  two  weeks, 
He  had  fits  of  intoxication,  and  when  these  came 
on,  he  would  sit  up  at  night,  tippling  until  he 
fell  off  his  chair.  Disposed  to  listen  to  his  con 
versation,  Mr.  Jarvis  sat  with  him  one  night  from 
twelve  to  three,  doing  all  he  politely  could  to  keep 
him  sober.  At  three  he  left  him  at  his  bottle.  At 
four  he  returned  to  the  room  and  found  him 
drunk  on  the  floor.  Mr.  Jarvis  wished  to  raise 
him  up,  but  Paine  desired  to  lie  still.  I  have  the 


A  Jew  of  Venice*  has  explained 

In  language  of  his  nation, 
The  manner  how  this  fray  began-,, 

Of  which  here  is  translation. 

There  was  a  widow,  old  and  poor,. 

Who  scarce  herself  could  keep, 
Her  stock  of  goods  was  very  small, 

Her  flock  one  single  sheep. 

And  when  the  time  of  shearing  came, 

She  counted  much  her  gains* 
For  now,  said  she,  I  shall  be  bless'd, 

With  plenty  for  my  pains. 

When  Aaron  heard  the  sheep  was  shear'd 
And  gave  a  good  increase, 

*  In  commentaries  which  Paine  had  beeti  reading- 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

vertigo,  the  vertigo,  said  he.  Yes,  said  Mr.  Jarvis, 
taking  up  the  bottle  and  looking  at  its  diminished 
contents,  you  have  it  deep — deep!  In  this  posture 
and  plight  he  talked  about  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  My  corporeal  functions  have  ceased,  he 
said,  and  yet  my  mind  is  strong.  My  body  is  in 
ert,  but  my  intellect  is  vigorous.  Is  not  this  proof 
of  the  immortality  .of  the  soul?  I  am  glad,  said 
Mr.  Jarvis,  that  you  believe  in  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  and  in  a  future  state.  That,  said  Paine, 
is  a  wrong  term.  We  have  strong  testimony,  I 
have  strong  hope  of  a  future  state,  but  I  know  no 
thing  about  it.  As  the  soul,  said  Mr.  Jarvis,  will 


He  straight-way  sent  his  tithing  man, 
And  took  away  the  fleece. 

At  this  the  weeping  wtdovv  went 

To  Korah,  to  complain, 
And  Korah  he  to  Aaron  went, 

In  order  to  explain. 

But  Aaron  said,  in  such  a  case 

There  can  be  no  forbearing 
The  law  ordains  that  thou  snait  give 

The  first  fleece  of  thy  shearing. 

When  lambing  time  was  come  about, 

This  sheep  became  a  dam, 
And  bless'd  the  widow's  mournful  heart, 

By  bringing  forth  a  lamb. 

When  Aaron  heard  the  sheep  had  young, 
He  staid  till  it  was  grown, 


276  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

live  hereafter,  will  it  be  conscious  that  it  has  lived 
now  ?  To  live  hereafter,  said  Paine,  and  not  be 
conscious  that  I  have  lived  now,  would  not  be 
identity ;  it  would  amount  to  nothing.(w) 

One  day,  sitting  with  a  volume  of  his  works  on 
a  table  before  him,  containing  his  Age  of  Reason, 
the  servant  girl  took  it  up  to  read.  Mr.  Jarvis 
said  she  should  not  open  it  for  the  world,  and  took 
it  from  her.  Why,  said  Paine,  rising  up  angrily? 
Because  she  is  a  good  girl  now :  she  has  the  fear 
of  God,  and  will  do  nothing  wrong.  She  cannot 
reason  as  you  can,  and  if  she  reads  your  Age  of 
Reason,  and  divests  herself  of  those  restraints 


And  then  he  sent  his  tithing  man, 
And  took  it  for  his  own. 

Again  the  weeping  widow  went 

To  Korah,  with  her  grief, 
But  Aaron  said,  in  such  a  case, 

There  can  be  no  relief. 

For  in  the  holy  law  'tis  writ, 

That  whilst  thou  keep'st  the  stock, 
Thou  shalt  present  unto  the  Lord, 

The  firstling  of  thy  flock. 

The  widow  then,  in  deep  distress, 

And  having  nought  to  eat, 
Against  her  will  she  kill'd  the  sheep. 

To  feed  upon  the  meat. 

(w)  He  once  said  to  Mr.  Carver,  that  if  he  lived  hereafter, 
he  should  be  conscious  that  he  had  written  Common  Sense,  &c« 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  277 

which  now  govern  her  conduct,  she  may  cheat 
me;  she  may  rob  me;  she  may  be  undone. 
Pshaw,  pshaw,  said  Paine,  walking  testily  across 
the  room  with  his  hands  behind  him,  why  should 
any  body  believe  in  Jesus  Christ?  Come  here, 
said  Mr.  Jarvis,  to  the  window ;  look  there,  point 
ing  to  a  congregation  of  people  of  colour,  coming 
out  of  their  church ;  do  you  see  that  black  man  ? 
Three  years  ago  he  was  a  great  reprobate;  he  was 
guilty  of  all  sorts  of  offences.  He  had  not  been 
brought  up  as  my  servant  has ;  he  was  egregi- 
ously  immoral;  he  had  no  religious  awe,  and  was 
not  disposed  to  make  use  of  the  little  reason  which 


When  Aaron  heard  the  sheep  was  kill' 4, 

He  sent  and  took  a  limb, 
Which,  by  the  holy  law,  he  said, 

Pertained  unto  him. 

For  in  the  holy  law  'tis  writ, 
That  when  thou  kilst  a  beast, 

Thou  shalt  a  shoulder  and  a  breast, 
Present  unto  the  priest. 

The  widow  then,  worn  out  with  grief, 
Sat  down  to  mourn  and  weep, 

And  in  a  fit  of  passion  said, 
The  devil  take  the  sheep. 

Then  Aaron  took  the  whole  away, 

And  said  the  laws  record, 
That  all  and  each  devoted  thing, 

Belongs  unto  the  Lord. 


278  LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

he  possessed.  He  has  since  been  converted.  He 
is  now  a  regular  attendant  on  his  church.  You 
see  that  he  is  dressed  well  and  has  a  goodly  ap 
pearance.  All  in  his  neighbourhood  now  shake 
hands  with  him  and  are  his  friends:  formerly  he 
was  avoided  by  them  all  as  a  pestilence.  Paine 
had  no  answer  to  make,  but  pish,  and  pshaw,  and 
I  had  not  thought  that  you  were  such  a  man.  Pie 
saw,  to  use  the  words  of  Mr.  Jar  vis,  the  fact,  and 
it  was  unanswerable. 

On  another  occasion  he  very  seriously  advised 
Mr.  Jarvis  to  get  married,  observing  that  the  mar 
riage  institution  is  an  excellent  one.  And  uhy 
did  not  you  get  married  ?(V)  Why,  I  thought. 

The  widow  went  among  her  kin  : 

The  tribes  of  Israel  rose, 
And  all  the  widows,  old  and  young, 

Pull'd  Aaron  by  the  nose. 

But  Moses  call'd  an  earthquake  up, 

And  fire  from  out  the  sky, 
And  all  the  consolation  is — 

The  Bible  tells  a  lie  !  !  ! 

(;r)  On  his  arrival  at  New- York,  I  rode  out  with  him  to  Ge 
neral  Gates's,  where  we  dined,  en  famille. ,  Wishing  to  talk  a 
little  with  Paine,  and  to  hear  his  conversation,  Mrs.  Gates 
continued  after  the  cloth  was  drawn.  After  a  while  she  said: 
"  I  always  threatened,  if  ever  I  saw  you,  to  ask  you  a  question, 
Mr.  Paine."  "Well,  Madam,"  said  Paine,  "  what  is  it?" 
"  Why,  I've  heard  a  great  deal  about  your  being  married  in 
England;  were  you  ever  married?"  "  I  never  answer,"  said 
Paine,  in  a  very  surly  manner,  "  impertinent  questions."  The 
general,  with  much  of  the  frankness,  and  all  the  language  of  a 
soidier,  turned  the  conversation. 


LIFE    OP   THOMAS    PAINJE.  279 

said  Paine,  that  I  had  talents,  and  that  if  I  mar 
ried,  I  should  not  be  able  to  make  a  present  of 
my  works  to  the  world,  for  its  benefit! 

As  to  his  person,  his  disposition,  Mr.  Jarvis  ob 
serves,  was  to  nastiness.  He  would  eat  his 
breakfast,  if  he  could,  without  washing  himself; 
but  Mr.  Jarvis  would  not  allow  him  to  do  so.  He 
would  pleasantly  say,  take  the  coffee  away ;  give 
Mr.  Paine  a  little  time ;  he  is  a  gentleman ;  he 
wants  to  wash  himself:  bring  him  some  soap  and 
water.  Treating  him  in  this  way,  and  paying 
great  attention  to  him,  he  was  able  to  keep  him 
tolerably  clean. 

No  one  could  recommend  matrimony  with 
greater  force  than  Paine.  By  habit  he  was  to 
tally  indifferent  to  his  person.  Cleanliness,  with 
out  which  there  can  be  no  comfort,  he  entirely 
disregarded.  In  his  old  age,  when  the  affection 
ate  attentions  of  a  wife  are  inestimable,  he  had 
no  house,  no  home;  no  one  to  help  or  to  comfort 
him.  But  recommending  marriage  to  others,  it 
was  profligate  in  him  to  deny,  as  Mr.  Jarvis  un 
derstood  him,  his  own  marriage.  If  he  could  not 
satisfactorily  reflect  upon  his  connubial  state,  and 
upon  his  conduct  towards  his  wife,  he  might  have 
avoided  a  falsehood. 

Principally  from  his  penurious  disposition,  and, 
in  some  regard,  from  the  impertinent  anonymous 
letters  which  were  addressed  to  him,  he  refused, 


280  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

while  at  Mr.  Carver's,  to  take  his  letters  from  the 
post-office.  If  Carver  would  pay  the  postage,  he 
would  receive  and  read  them  with  pleasure,  but 
if  not,  he  never  troubled  himself  about  them.  Se 
veral  anonymous  letters  were  left  for  him  at  Mr. 
Jarvis's,  while  he  lived  there,  desiring  his  opinion, 
whether,  in  baptism,  immersion  was  better  than 
sprinkling,  or  sprinkling  better  than  immersion  ? 
Advise  them,  said  Mr.  Jarvis,  to  use  soap  and  ^va- 
tcr.  Paine  did  not  perceive  the  point. 

He  usually  took  a  nap  after  dinner,  and  would 
not  be  disturbed  let  who  would  call  to  see  him. 
One  afternoon,  a  very  old  lady,  dressed  in  a  large 
scarlet  cloak,  knocked  at  the  door,  and  inquired 
for  Thomas  Paine.  Mr.  Jarvis  told  her  he  was 
asleep.  I  am  very  sorry,  she  said,  for  that,  for  I 
wrant  to  see  him  very  particularly.  Thinking  it  a 
pity  to  make  an  old  woman  call  twice,  Mr.  Jarvis 
took  her  into  Paine's  bed- room  and  waked  him. 
He  rose  upon  one  elbow,  and  then  with  an  ex 
pression  of  eye  that  staggered  the  old  woman 
back  a  step  or  two,  he  asked — "  What  do  you 
want?"  Is  your  name  Paine?  Yes.  "  Well  then, 
I  come  from  Almighty  God,  to  tell  you,  that  if 
you  do  not  repent  of  your  sins  and  believe  in  our 
blessed  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  you  will  be  damned, 

and" "  Poh,  poh,  it  is  not  true.     You  were 

not  sent  with  any  such  impertinent  message.  Jar- 
vis>  make  her  go  away.     Pshaw,  he  would  not 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

send  such  a  foolish  ugly  old  woman  as  you  about 
with  his  messages.  Go  away.  Go  back. — Shut 
the  door."  The  old  lady  raised  both  her  hynds, 
kept  them  so,  and  without  saying  another  word, 
walked  away  in  mute  astonishment. 

From  Mr.  Jarvis's  he  went,  in  April,  1807,  to 
Broome-street,  an  out-part  of  the  city,  where  he 
boarded  with  Mr., Hitt,  a  baker.  I  have  several 
times  called  on  Hitt,  who  has  tried  to  elude  me,  evi 
dently  in  the  hope  of  concealing  facts ;  and  when, 
at  last, I  saw  and  interrogated  him,  his  communica 
tions  were  reluctant  and  scanty.  The  little  infor 
mation  which  I  extorted  from  him,  corroborates, 
however,  that  which  had  been  incidentally  men 
tioned  to  me  by  two  or  three  gentlemen  who  some 
times  visited  Paine  when  he  resided  at  Hitt's. 
Both  enable  me  to  say,  that  having  less  care  taken 
of  him  than  at  Mr.  Jarvis's,  he  relapsed  into  much 
of  his  former  nastiness.  He  ate  with  Hitt's  family, 
and  had  a  small  chamber  to  sit  in,  adjoining 
which  was  a  closet,  just  large  enough  to  hold  his 
bed.  In  this  chamber  he  received  his  night-visi 
tors,  and  would  sometimes,  but  not  often,  permit 
them  to  taste  his  rum.  Hitt  tells  me  that  he  was 
not  always  drunk,  but  admits  that  he  frequently 
was.  He  thinks  that  he  did  not  drink  more  than 
three  quarts  of  rum  a  week,  while  he  lived  with 
him,  which  was  about  ten  months ;  but  allowing 

that  he  had  no  wish  to  extenuate,  none  to  sup- 
L  i 


282  &IFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

press  the  truth,  he  could  have  had  but  a  very 
imperfect  knowledge,  his  business  calling  him 
much  from  home,  of  the  quantity  of  liquor  which 
Paine  consumed.  From  breakfast,  he  retired,  Hitt 
says,  to  his  room,  where  he  remained  until  din 
ner.  After  dinner  he  would  go  to  bed  and  sleep 
till  tea-time.  From  tea,  he  again  retired  to  his 
room  and  drank  grog  until  late  at  night,  when,  if 
able,  he  wrould  crawl  into  bed,  but  if  not,  which 
was  most  probable,  he  would  fall  off  his  chair  and 
sleep  himself  sober  on  the  floor.  Not  more  than 
four  or  five  persons  visited  him,  and  one  or  two 
of  these,  gentlemen  with  whom  I  am  in  daily 
habits  of  intercourse,  did  so  from  curiosity;  to 
learn  whether  he  was  dead  or  alive.  Some  edi 
tors  complimented  him  with  their  gazettes.  These 
served  him  at  on^e  for  a  carpet  and  a  table-cover. 
His  room  was  full  of  dirt  and  confusion.  Hkt 
says  that  he  had  expected  he  would  have  hired  a 
servant  boy  to  attend  him,  but  that  he  did  not. 
Why  did  he  leave  you?  Because,  said  Hitt,  I 
wanted  to  raise  the  price  of  his  board.  How  much 
had  he  paid  you  ?  Five  dollars  a  week.  How 
much  did  you  want  ?  Seven.  What  did  he  offer 
to  give  ?  Six.  Immediately  after  Paine  left,  I 
rode  past  Hitt  in  the  country,  and  asked,  him  how 
eame  Paine  to  leave  you  ?  Why,  said  he,  "  the 
dirty,  drunken,  cross  old  devil,  I  would  not  let 
him  stay  any  longer."  This  was  no  doubt  true> 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE,  283 

He  was  somehow  apprized,  when  I  called  on  him 
for  information,  that  I  was  writing  Paine's  life, 
and,  being  one  of  his  disciples,  he  has  very  repre- 
hensibly  endeavoured  to  suppress  the  truth. 

While  at  Hiit's,  Paine  corresponded  with  Pre 
sident  Jefferson.  In  every  thing  he  was  slovenly; 
and  he  was  regardless  of  all  the  principles  and 
rules  of  honour.  He  laid  the  president's  letters 
open  upon  his  table,  where  every  body  who  en 
tered  his  room  could  read  them.  The  substance 
of  one  of  them  got  into  our  gazettes.  It  related 
to  our  differences  with  England,  in  regard  to 
which,  Mr.  Jefferson  had,  much  to  the  satisfaction 
of  Paine,  very  improperly  given  an  unfavoura 
ble  opinion.  Paine  wrote  paragraphs  on  the  same 
side  of  the  question,  for  one  of  our  Jacobin  ga 
zettes.  In  his  newspaper  essays,  he  was  com 
pletely  a  Frenchman.  In  one  of  them  he  joyfully 
anticipates  the  arrival  of  a  hostile  French  force 
in  the  city  of  New-York,  and  hopes  that  they  will 
'•*  trim  the  jackets  of  the  tory  merchants  J"(y) 


(ij)  He  vras  always  an  advocate  either  of  democrnt'ck anaiv 
ohy  or  of  imperial  despotism  :  there  was  no  medium  with  him. 
"  They  talk,  he  said  to  a  friend  of  mine,  of  the  tyranny  of  the 
empcrour  of  France.  I  know  Bonaparte;  1  have  lived  under 
his  government,  and  he  allows  as  much  freedom  as  /TTZ.S//,  or 
an  any  body  ought  to  have.'?  With  Napoleon's  invasion  of 
Spain,  he  was  enraptured,  and,  of  course,  wished  him  success! 
Could  such  a  man  be  a  friend  of  freedom  ? 


284  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

At  the  same  time  Madame  Bonneville,  utterly 
neglected  by  Paine,  was  somehow  procuring  sub 
sistence  in  the  city.  Her  son,  Ben,  was  with  her. 
Tom  was  at  New-Rochelle,  frequently  at  Mr. 
Dean's,  and  sometimes  at  Joshua  Fowler's.  He 
was  maintained  on  the  credit,  but  not,  I  be 
lieve,  at  the  request  of  Paine.  His  board  is 
not  yet  paid  for.  The  persons  who  took  the  aban 
doned  child  in,  for  he  was  in  effect  abandoned, 
have  presented  to  his  executors  claims  for  his 
maintenance. 

I  have  already  mentioned  his  letter,  which, 
soon  after  his  arrival  in  the  United  States  in  1802, 
he  wrote  to  Thomas  Clio  Rickman,(z)  of  London. 
In  this  he  states,  that  his  property  was  worth 
6000 /.  steiHng,  which  put  into  the  funds,  would 
yield  him  400  /.  sterling  a  year.  Still,  however, 
he  was  not  satisfied.  Avarice  had  either  master 
ed  his  former  professions  of  disinterestedness,  or 
those  professions  were  deceitful.  "  In  a  great  af 
fair,  where  the  happiness  of  man  is  at  stake,  I 
love,  he  said,  to  work  for  nothing  ;  and  so  fully 
am  I  under  the  influence  of  this  principle,  that  I 
should  lose  the  spirit,  the  pleasure,  and  the  pride 


(r)  Preface  to  the  London  edition,  1804,  of  his  Letters  to 
the  citizens  of  the  United  States, 


LIKE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  285 

of  it,  were  I  conscious  that  I  looked  for  re- 
ward."0) 

But,  in  January,  1808,  while  at  Hitt's,  he  pre 
sented  a  memorial  to  congress  for  compensation 
for  accompanying  Col.  Laurens  in  his  mission 
to  Paris,  in  the  year  178 1. (A)  This  was  a  "  great 
affair,  where  the  happiness  of  man  was  at  stake," 
and  yet  he  looked  for  "  reward"  !  And  he  tells 
congress,  that  unless  they  compensate  him,  the 
story  will  not  tell  well  in  history.  Had  his  claim 
been  a  substantial  one,  neither  his  wealth,  of 
which  he  had  boasted,  nor  his  former  professions 
of  disinterested  patriotism,  to  which  his  memo 
rial  gave  the  lie,  would  have  prevented  congress 
from  adequately  compensating  his  services.  But 
he  had  no  claim,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shown,  and 
as  congress,  in  effect,  resolved. 

There  is  a  passage  in  his  memorial  that  merits 
a  more  particular,  though  it  shall  receive  but  a 
very  brief  notice. 

In  the  second  part  of  his  Rights  of  Man,  doing 
every  thing  in  his  power  to  excite  the  people  of 
England  to  revolt  against  their  government,  he 
compares  the  constitution  of  England  with  the 


(a)  Letter  4  to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States.     He  has 
similar  remarks  in  his  Rights  of  Man. 

($)  See  his  memorial  in  the  Appendix. 


2  8t>  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

constitution  of  the  United  States:  describes  the 
former,  if  he  allows  that  there  is  a  constitution  in 
England,  as  every  thing  that  is  absurd  and  perni 
cious,  and  represents  the  latter,  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States,  as  containing  all  possible  excel 
lence.  But,  in  his  memorial  to  congress,  he  ex 
presses  a  very  different  opinion.  Speaking  of  the 
services  which  he  had  rendered  the  United  States, 
he  says  : — "  The  country  has  been  benefitted  by 
them,  and  I  make  myself  happy  in  the  knowledge 
of  it.  It  is,  however,  proper  to  me  to  add,  that 
the  mere  independence  of  America,  were  it  to 
have  been  followed  by  a  system  of  government, 
modelled  after  the  corrupt  system  of  the  English 
government,  it  would  not  have  interested  me  with 
the  unabated  ardour  it  did.  It  was  to  bring  for 
ward  and  establish  the  representative  system  of 
government,  that  was  the  leading  principle  with 
me."(V)  The  middle  sentence  is  ill  expressed, 
and  ungrammatical,  but  its  meaning  will  be  un 
derstood.  He  was  an  enemy  to  our  government, 
because  it  is  modelled  after  the  corrupt  system  of 
the  Engtisk.  The  one,  in  his  estimation,  is 
quite  as  bad  as  the  other,  for  that  of  the  English 
he  thought  excessively  vicious.  Where  now 
were  his  old  and  new  systems  of  government? 


(c)  Sec%  his  memorial  in  the  Appendix. 


LIFE    OP   THOMAS    PAINE.  287 

The  new  was  that  of  the  United  States,  which  he 
had  recommended  to  England,  but  which  in  his 
opinion,  when  revolution  was  not  his  object,  was 
precisely  the  same  as  the  constitution  of  Eng 
land  ! 

He  published,  while  at  Hitt's,  but  I  know  not 
when  he  wrote,  his  "  Examination  of  the  pass 
ages  in  the  New  Testament,  quoted  from  the  Old 
and  called  Prophecies  concerning  Jesus  Christ,  to 
which  is  prefixed,  an  Essay  on  Dream,  showing 
by  what  operation  of  the  mind  a  dream  is  pro 
duced  in  sleep,  and  applying  the  same  to  the  ac 
count  of  dreams  in  the  New  Testament ;  with 
an  Appendix,  containing  my  private  thoughts  of 
a  future  state,  and  remarks  on  the  contradictory 
doctrine  in  the  books  of  Matthew  and  Mark  ;" 
an  octavo  pamphlet  of  65  pages. 

The  metaphysical  part  of  this  impious  work  is 
very  wretched.  The  whole  is  indeed  the  feeblest 
of  his  productions.  It  has  been  very  ably  and 
satisfactorily  answered  by  Mr.  Colvin,  of  Balti 
more. 

From  Hitt's,  he  removed  early  in  February, 

1 808,  to  No.  63  Partition-street,  where  he  boarded. 
This  was  a  small  tavern,  where  a  sixpenny  show 
was  daily  exhibited.  Here  he  had  no  care  taken 
of  him :  he  was  left  entirely  to  himself,  and  I  hard 
ly,  therefore,  need  to  add,  that,  drunk  every  day, 
he  was  neither  washed  nor  shaved,  nor  shirted  for 


288  LIFE   OF   THOMAS  PAINE. 

weeks.  He  was  so  indescribably  and  notoriously 
nasty,  that  he  might  well  contend  with  the  show 
man  for  the  most  numerous  audience  of  curious 
spectators.  One  of  my  friends,  actuated  by  feelings 
of  humanity,  paid  him  a  visit,  and,  in  language 
sufficiently  delicate,  proposed  to  accompany  him 
to  the  baths,  to  wash  him,  but  to  no  purpose.  His 
crust  of  filth  seemed  to  give  him  comfort.  As  an 
inducement,  my  friend  told  him,  that  washing  in 
the  baths  would  cost  him  nothing;  meaning  that 
he  would  pay  the  expense  himself,  but  Paine  said 
that  neither  his  beard  nor  his  appearance  gave  him 
any  uneasiness.  He  wras  truly  an  object  of  com 
passion,  for  great  as  his  offences  were,  he  was  a 
human  being.  He  had  here  one  of  his  apoplexies^ 
from  which  it  was  supposed  he  would  not  have 
recovered. 

In  the  same  month,  (February  14,  1808)  he 
presented  a  letter  to  the  committee  of  congress, 
to  which  his  memorial  had  been  referred.  In 
this  he  grossly  misrepresents  his  conduct,  and 
that  of  congress,  in  reference  to  his  controversy 
with  Silas  Deane.(^)  The  object  of  the  letter 
was  to  induce  the  committee  to  report  in  favour 
of  rewarding  what  he  had  been  pleased  to  term 
services  rendered  in  Laurens's  mission  to  France, 


See  the  Appendix, 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS    PAINE.  289 

and  he  seems  to  have  thought,  that  he  could  ac 
complish  his  object  by  a  no  very  dexterous  state 
ment  of  many  very  palpable  falsehoods. 

On  the  28th  of  the  same  month,  the  commit 
tee  having  made  no  report,  he  addressed  a  letter 
to  the  speaker  of  the  house  of  representatives.^) 
In  this  he  says  : — "  It  will  be  convenient  to  me 
to  know  what  congress  will  decide  on,  because 
it  will  determine  me  whether,  after  so  many 
years  of  generous  services,  and  that  in  the  most 
perilous  times,  and  after  seventy  years  of  age,  I 
shall  continue  i?i  this  country  or  offer  my  services 
to  some  other  country  !  It  will  not  be  to  England, 
unless  there  should  be  a  revolution." 

This  is  degenerating  into  a  poor  Hessian  sol 
dier,  who  fights  for  any  country  or  cause  for  pay. 
His  continuance  in  the  country  depended  on  a 
grant  of  money  by  congress  upon  a  fraudulent 
claim!  Where  were  his  6000  /.  sterling ;  his  400  /. 
sterling  a  year?  Surely  he  was  above  want. 
What  then  shall  we  say  of  his  justice,  his  avarice, 
his  attachment  to  the  "  promised  land?"  He  was 
ready,  in  his  seventieth  year,  to  offer  his  services 
to  cfi  some  other  country,"  for  reward,  but  "  not 
to  England,  unless  there  should  be  a  revolution!" 


(<?)  See  Appendix". 

M  m 


290  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

No,  indeed,  whatever  might  have  been  his  desire, 
England  was  prohibited  to  him. 

Receiving  no  answer  from  the  speaker,  he 
again  addressed  him  on  the  7th  of  the  following 
March.(/)  In  his  letter  he  speaks  of  the  commit 
tee,  who  had  not  yet  reported,  with  great  con 
tempt.  "  If,  he  adds,  my  memorial  was  referred 
to  the  committee  of  claims,  for  the  purpose  of 
losing  it,  it  is  unmanly  policy.  After  so  many 
years  of  service,  my  heart  grows  cold  towards 
America!" 

His  heart  grows  cold  towards  America,  because 
America  will  not  gratify  his  avarice. 

In  the  postscript,  he  says,  "  I  repeat  my  request, 
that  you  would  call  on  the  committee  of  claims 
to  bring  in  their  report,  and  that  congress  would 
decide  upon  it." 

The  speaker,  Mr.  Varnum,  answered  his  letter, 
and,  after  observing  that  the  committee  had  been 
much  employed,  very  sarcastically  begged  him 
to  have  a  little  Christian  patience !  Hang  him, 
said  Paine,  why  does  he  talk  to  me  about  chris* 
tian  patience  ? 

One  or  two  of  his  disciples  took  him  away  from 
the  tavern  in  Partition-street,  as  it  w7ere  by  force, 
in  July,  1808,  and  prevailed  with  Mr.  Ryder,  at 


(/)  Appendix. 


LIFK   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  291 

Greenwich,  near  the  State-Prison,  to  board  him. 
I  have  found  Mr.  Ryder,  who  is  a  cartman,  sensi 
ble  and  communicative.  He  lives  in  a  small  com 
fortable  house,  and  he  and  his  family  make  a  very 
orderly  and  decent  appearance.  Mr.  Staley,  he 
says,  called  on  him,  and  asked  him  if  he  would 
board  Thomas  Paine,  at  seven  dollars  a  week?  I 
inquired,  said  Mr.  Ryder,  if  he  were  the  man  they 
called  old  Tom  Paine  ?  Mr.  Staley  answered  yes. 
Why,  I  don't  know;  I'll  try  him  for  a  week.  He 
accordingly  came,  dirty  enough,  and  when  he 
had  been  three  days,  I  told  Mr.  Staley,  said  Mr. 
Ryder,  that  he  must  take  him  away,  for  he  was 
such  a  cross,  drunken,  morose  old  man,  that  I 
could  do  nothing  with  him.  Mr.  Staley  asked  me 
if  another  dollar  a  week  would  do  me  ?  (meaning, 
tempt  him  to  keep  Paine.)  I  told  him  it  might ;  so 
he  staid.  When  the  first  month  was  out,  Paine 
gave  me  twenty-eight  dollars.  I  then  told  him  it 
was  eight  dollars  a  week,  according  to  Mr.  Sta 
ley  's  promise.  Then,  said  Paine,  Staley  may  pay 
the  extra-dollar  himself,  for  I  won't ;  seven  are 
enough :  why  you'd  take  all  my  money  from  me 
and  make  me  a  poor  man.  Eight  wrere  afterwards 
paid.  He  lived  at  Ryder's  until  the  4th  of  May, 
1809,  about  eleven  months;  during  which  time, 
except  the  last  ten  weeks,  he  got  drunk  regularly 


292  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

twice  a  day ;  by  dinner  time,  when  he  went  to 
bed,  and  at  night,  after  he  awoke  to  tea.  As  to 
his  person,  said  Mr.  Ryder,  we  had  to  wash  him 
like  a  child,  arid  with  much  the  same  coaxing,  for 
he  hated  soap  and  water.  I  soon  found  that  I 
could  not  keep  and  attend  him  for  eight  dollars  a 
week,  and  told  Walter  Morton  that  they  must 
take  him  away  unless  he  would  pay  more,  for  I 
had  to  wait  on  him  all  night,  and  many  weeks 
together  I  never  had  my  clothes  off:  a  little  more 
was  allowed.  And  he  was  so  peevish  that  one 
could  hardly  live  with  him.  He  once  threatened 
to  beat  my  woman,  (Mrs.  Ryder)  but  I  came  home 
at  the  time  and  prevented  the  violence.  He  would 
often  talk  about  death,  and  wished  to  die.  Some 
times,  though  rarely,  he  was  good  humoured,  but 
his  language  was  generally  rude,  and  his  conduct 
insulting  and  tyrannical.  Frequently  he  would 
have  boiled  milk  and  bread  after  tea,  for  supper, 
of  which  he  would  eat  two  or  three  spoonsful,  and 
invariably  throw  the  rest  into  the  fire-place.  He 
would  have  the  best  of  meat  cooked  for  him,  eat 
a  little  of  it,  and  always  throw  away  the  rest. 
Why  did  he  do  so  ?  Why,  said  Mr.  Ryder,  smil 
ing,  that  he  might  have  the  worth  of  the  money 
which  he  paid  for  his  board!  Here,  as  elsewhere, 
he  chose  to  perform  all  the  functions  of  nature  in. 
bed.  When  censured  for  it  by  Mrs.  Ryder,  he 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE.  293 

would  say,  "  I  pay  you  money  enough,  and  you 
shall  labour  for  it." 

In  January  1809,  he  began  to  be  so  feeble  and 
infirm  as  to  be  incapable  of  doing  any  thing  for 
himself.  Mr.  Ryder  found  that  Paine  must  either 
leave  his  house,  or  he  himself  must  abandon 
his  cart  and  horse,  in  order  to  attend  him.  He 
mentioned  this  to  Walter  Morton,  one  of  Fame's 
executors,  and  it  was  agreed  that  he  should  be 
paid  twenty  dollars  a  week  for  constant  attend-* 
ance  on  him.  In  February,  he  began  to  drink 
milk  punch,  which,  until  he  left  Mr.  Ryder's  in 
May,  was  his  diet.  Often  Mr.  Ryder  found  him 
in  tears,  but  he  cannot  say  whether  they  were  the 
effect  of  bodily  pain  or  of  reflection.  He  was 
very  anxious  to  die,  but  still  more  anxious  about 
his  body  after  death.(^)  He  wished  to  be  inter 
red  in  the  cemetery  of  the  Quakers.  Staley  laugh- 


(£•)  His  language  in  the  Rights  of  Man,  part  1,  p.  53, 
Phil.  1797,  very  ill  accords  with  his  conduct  in  the  moments 
of  his  dissolution.  "  It  may  perhaps  be  said,  he  there  re 
marks,  that  it  signifies  nothing  to  a  man  what  is  done  to  him 
after  he  is  dead  ;  but  it  signifies  much  to  the  li\  ing."  He  was, 
however,  full  of  solicitude  about  the  disposition  of  his  body 
after  death.  He  seemed  to  be  afraid  that  it  would  have  no 
resting-place ;  that  it  would  be  exposed  to  offence,  or  be 
given  to  the  winds.  1  know  not  whether  this  be  a  weakness, 
for  death-bed  thoughts  are  no  doubt  very  different  from  those 
of  vigorous  health.  The  soul,  when  about  to  depart,  has  per 
haps  a  natural  and  necessary  concern  for  the  body. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

ed  at  him,  and  told  him,  that  as  his  body  was  no 
thing  but  matter,  it  was  of  no  moment  what  be 
came  of  it.  Paine  thought  differently.  Nothing, 
on  this  subject,  could  mitigate  his  apprehensions, 
or  lighten  the  gloominess  of  his  mind.  He  desir 
ed  Mr.  Ryder  to  go  to  Mr.  Willet  Hicks,  a  highly 
respectable  Quaker  gentleman,  wrhose  country 
seat  is  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  to  say  that  he 
wished  to  see  him.  I  have  seen  Mr.  Hicks,  who 
tells  me  that  he  called  on  Paine  on  the  1 9th  of 
March,  according  to  his  desire.  After  the  cus 
tomary  salutations,  Paine  said,  that  as  he  was 
44  going  to  leave  one  place,  it  was  necessary  to 
provide  another.  I  am  now  in  my  seventy-third 
year,  and  do  not  expect  to  live  long :  I  wish  to  be 
buried  in  your  burying  ground.  I  could  be  bu 
ried  in  the  Episcopal  church,  but  they  are  so  arro 
gant  ;  or  in  the  Presbyterian,  but  they  are  so 
hypocritical  !"(/*)  He  added  that  his  father  was  a 
Quaker,  and  though  he  did  not  think  well  of  any 
Christian  sect,  he  thought  better  of  the  Quakers 


(/*)  Mr.  Hicks  does  not  exactly  remember  the  epithet  which 
he  applied  to  the  Presbyterians,  but  it  was  one  of  reproach, 
and  as  hyfio critical  is  that  which  he  used  to  apply  to  them,  I 
have  supplied  the  omission  of  Mr.  Hicks  with  the  term.  The 
positive  assertion,  that  he  could  be  interred  in  the  cemetery 
of  either,  was  nothing  but  assertion.  He  had  made  no  applica 
tion. 


LIFE    OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  295 

than  of  any  other.(z)  Mr.  Hicks  laid  his  request 
before  the  committee  who  have  the  superintend- 
ance  of  the  Quaker  cemetery  and  funerals,  eight 
in  number,  of  which  he  himself  was  one,  but  the 
committee  did  not  comply  with  his  desire  to  be 
interred  in  their  burying  ground.  This  decision, 
which  was  communicated  with  great  delicacy, 
affected  him  deeply. 

Mr.  Hicks  was  so  kind  as  to  give  me  the  fol 
lowing  in  his  own  hand- writing. 

"  In  some  serious  conversation  I  had  with  him 
a  short  time  before  his  death,  he  said  his  senti 
ments  respecting  the  Christian  religion  were  now 
precisely  the  same  as  they  were  when  he  wrote 
the  Age  of  Reason." 

Mr.  David  Gelston,  collector  of  the  customs  of 
the  port  of  New-York,  made  him  a  visit  early  in 
April.  He  mentioned  to  Paine  that  he  had  a  let 
ter  for  him  from  Mr.  Monroe,  who  was  our  mi 
nister  in  France  when  he  was  liberated  from  im 
prisonment  in  Paris.  Confined  to  his  bed,  Paine 
desired  that  it  might  be  read,  and  Dr.  Manley  read 
it.  It  appears,  that  besides  hospitably  and  gra 
tuitously  keeping  him  in  his  house  near  a  year 
and  a  half  after  his  release  from  prison,  which  he 
had  in  a  great  measure  procured,  Mr.  Monroe  had 
generously  lent  him  considerable  sums  of  money, 

(?)    I  have  this  remark  from  Mr,  Ryder 


296  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE: 

The  letter,  which  Dr.  Manley  tells  me  was  equal 
ly  elegant  and  polite,  stated  that  Mr.  Monroe  did 
not  know,  nor  did  he  with  regard  to  himself  care, 
whether  Paine  was  able  immediately  to  refund 
the  money  or  not ;  all  that  Mr.  Monroe  desired 
was,  that  he  would  so  acknowledge  the  debt,  as 
that,  at  some  future  day,  his  children  might  have 
the  benefit  of  it.  Paine  listened  attentively  to  the 
letter,  but  made  no  reply.  No  acknowledgment 
could  be  got  from  him  !  Not  a  word  did  he  speak 
either  then  or  afterwards  respecting  it ! 

Madame  Bonne ville  lived  at  Greenwich,  in  the 
neighbourhood,  where  she  taught  French  to  a 
few  scholars :  Ben.  was  with  her.  Sometimes 
she  made  Paine  a  visit,  though  but  seldom.  He 
always  treated  her  rudely,  and  she  never  mani 
fested  any  affection.  Tom.  was  sent  from  New- 
Rochelle,  the  people  there  being  tired  of  keeping 
him,  as  had  hitherto  been  the  case,  for  nothing. 
From  Greenwich  he  was  removed  to  Bergen,  a 
small  village  in  New- Jersey,  where  he  was  placed 
in  a  boarding-school.  Ben.  remained  with  his 
mother,  to  whom  Paine  now-and-then  sent  some 
money. 

Symptoms  of  his  dissolution  were  now  so  evi 
dent,  and  he  was  so  sensible  of  them  himself, 
that,  on  the  4th  of  May,  he  was  removed  from 
Mr.  Ryder's  to  a  small  house  owned  by  a  Mr. 
Holbron,  in  Columbia-street,  in  the  neighbour- 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS  PAINE.  297 

hood.  The  house  was  rented  by  Madame  Bon- 
neville,  for  Paine,  who  occupied  the  whole  of  it. 
The  lady  did  not,  however,  consent  to  do  so 
until  a  nurse  had  been  engaged,  being  unwilling 
to  pay  the  necessary  attention  to  him  herself. 
This  nurse  was  Mrs.  Hedden,  a  pious  elderly 
matron,  with  whom  I  have  conversed  on  the 
subject.  She  was  aware,  she  says,  of  Paine 's 
bad  temper  ;  determined,  however,  to  take  all 
the  care  of  him  she  could,  but  not  to  bear  ill 
treatment.  During  the  first  three  or  four  days 
his  conduct  wras  tolerable,  although  he  always 
quarrelled  with  Madame  Bonneville  when  she 
went  into  his  room.  About  the  fifth  day  his  lan 
guage  was  offensive  to  Mrs.  Hedden,  who  told 
him  she  would  instantly  leave  the  house.  Sensi 
ble  of  her  value  as  a  nurse,  and  that  in  all 
probability  no  other  person  would  attend  him,  he 
made  her  satisfactory  concessions,  and  w^as  after 
wards  civil.  For  the  first  week  he  drank  much 
milk  punch,  which  was  his  sustenance,  but  he 
then  became  too  feeble  to  take  scarcely  any  thing. 
He  suffered,  she  says,  much  bodily  pain.  He 
would  long  and  frequently  call  out  "  O  Lord 
help  me  !  O  Lord  help  me  !  O  Christ  help  me  !  O 
Christ  help  me  !"  as  observed  by  Dr.  Manley,  in 
the  letter  which  follows.  She  then  said,  that  if 
he  would  throw  himself  on  the  mercy  of  Jesus 

Nn 


298  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

Christ,  he  would  find  relief.     He  made  no  re 
ply. 

About  two  weeks  before  his  death,  he  was  vi 
sited  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Milledollar,  a  Presbyterian 
minister  of  great  eloquence,  and  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Cunningham.  The  latter  gentleman  said — "  Mr. 
Paine,  we  visit  you  as  friends  and  neighbours. 
You  have  now  a  full  view  of  death :  you  cannot 
live  long,  and  whosoever  does  not  believe  in  Jesus 
Christ  'will  assuredly  be  damned."  "  Let  me,  said 
Paine,  have  none  of  your  popish  stuff.  Get  away 
with  you — good  morning — good  morning."  The 
Rev.  Mr.  Milledollar  attempted  to  address  him, 
but  he  was  interrupted  with  the  same  language. 
When  they  were  gone,  he  said  to  Mrs.  Hedden, 
"  don't  let  'em  come  here  again :  they  trouble 
me."  They  soon  renewed  their  visit,  but  Mrs. 
Hedden  told  them  that  they  could  not  be  admitted, 
and  that  she  thought  the  attempt  useless,  for  that 
if  God  did  not  change  his  mind,  she  was  sure  no 
human  power  could.  They  retired. 

After  suffering  very  violent  pain,  which  he 
said  was  in  no  particular  place,  but  all  over  him, 
Mrs.  Hedden  would  read  the  Bible  to  him  for 
hours,  and  he  would  attentively  listen.  Did  he, 
I  inquired,  ask  you  to  read  it  ?  No.  Did  he  ask 
you  to  stop  ?  No.  I  read  and  he  said  nothing. 
He  was  very  feeble  ;  quite,  to  all  appearance,  ex 
hausted.  Poor  man,  how  I  felt  for  him  !  How 


LIFE    OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  299 

I  wished  that  he  was  a  Christian  !  He  would  be 
a  day  without  speaking  a  word,  except  asking — 
"  is  no  body  in  the  room — who's  there  ?"  He 
never  mentioned  Tom  Bonneville,  who  was  at 
Bergen  ;  but  every  now  and  then,  seeing  Ben, 
he  enquired — "  Does  he  go  to  school"  ?  Madame 
Bonneville  did  not  often  go  into  his  room.  She 
wished  that  he  was  dead,  but  Mrs.  Hedden 
cannot  say  whether  it  was  to  get  possession 
of  his  property,  or  that  he  might  be  rid  of 
the  pain  with  which  he  wTas  tortured,  and 
which  he  impatiently  bore.  She  was  soon  grati 
fied.  On  the  8th  day  of  June,  1 809,  about  nine 
in  the  morning,  he  placidly  and  almost  without  a 
struggle  died,  as  he  had  lived,  an  enemy  to  the 
Christian  religiont(/).  He  was  born  in  January, 
1737 — aged  seventy-two  years  and  five  months. 

Dr.  Mauley's   letter,   which  follows,  will  be 
read  with  interest. 

"  Bloomingdalc,  New-York,  Sept.  27,  1809. 
"  SIR, 

"  Having  lived  in  the  neighbourhood   of  Mr. 
Paine,  and,  in  his  last  moments,  attended  him  as 


(/)  According  to  our  gazettes,  Mrs.  Paine  died  at  Lewes, 
in  England,  in  the  year  1808.  From  her  womanhood  she  was 
intelligent  and  pious.  She  bore  with  more  than  ordinary  for 
titude  her  connubial  misfortunes.  She  left  this  world  with  an 
excellent  character.  She  had  much  of  that  supreme  happi 
ness  which  is  derived  from  unaffected  sympathy  with  unavoid 
able  distress. 


300  LIFE   OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

his  physician,  I  should  esteem  myself  much  oblig 
ed,  if  you  would  be  so  kind  as  to  communicate  io 
me  in  writing,  to  be  incorporated  into  his  life, 
which  I  am  preparing  for  the  press,  your  observa 
tions  on  his  temper  and  habits,  the  cause  and  na 
ture  of  his  disease,  the  kind  of  persons  by  whom 
he  was  visited  during  his  illness,  their  general  con 
versation  with  him  respecting  his  deistical  works, 
his  owrn  remarks,  opinions,  and  behaviour,  when 
on  his  death-bed,  and,  generally,  such  informa 
tion  as  in  your  judgment  may  interest  the  publick. 
"  I  am,  sir,  your  most  obedient, 
"  Humble  servant, 

"  JAMES  CHEETHAM." 
"  DR.  MANLEY." 


"  New-York,  October  2,  1809. 
«  SIR, 

"  Your  note  of  the  27th  ult.  has  been  duly  re 
ceived,  and  I  hasten  in  conformity  to  your  wishes 
therein  expressed  to  communicate  the  informa 
tion  I  possess  respecting  its  subject.  Though  my 
opportunity  has  been  great,  you  will  no  doubt 
observe  my  knowledge  to  be  very  limited;  the  rea 
son  of  which  will  be  obvious  to  those  who  are  in 
the  least  acquainted  with  the  character  of  the 
man.  Such  as  it  may  be,  I  assure  you  it  is  much 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  301 

at  your  service,  and  if  any  part  of  it  afford  matter 
for  serious  speculation  to  any  portion  of  the  pub- 
lick,  I  shall  feel  a  pleasure  in  having  communi 
cated  it. 

"  I  was  called  upon  by  accident  to  visit  Mr. 
Paine,  on  the  25th  February  last,  and  found  him 
indisposed  with  fever,  and  very  apprehensive  of 
an  attack  of  apoptexy,  as  he  stated  that  he  had 
that  disease  before,  and  at  this  time  felt  a  great 
degree  of  vertigo,  and  was  unable  to  help  himself 
as  he  had  hitherto  done,  on  account  of  an  intense 
pain  above  the  eyes.  On  inquiry  of  the  attend 
ants,  I  was  told,  that,  three  or  four  days  previous, 
he  had  concluded  to  dispense  with  his  usual  quan 
tity  of  accustomed  stimulus,  and  that  he  had,  on 
that  day,  resumed  it.  To  the  want  of  his  usual 
drink,  they  attributed  his  illness  ;  and  it  is  highly 
probable,  that  the  usual  quantity  operating  upon 
a  state  of  system  more  easily  excited,  from  the 
above  privation,  was  the  cause  of  the  symptoms 
of  which  he  then  complained. 

"  After  having  done  and  directed  what  I 
thought  necessary,  I  left  him,  with  a  promise  that 
I  would  make  him  a  visit  next  day,  when  I  ex- 
expected  to  see  his  friends,  and  state  to  them  his 
situation.  Accordingly  I  called  and  saw  two  of  his 
particular  friends,  (one  of  wiiom  is  an  executor 
to  his  estate)  related  to  them  his  situation,  and 
was  requested  to  pay  him  particular  attention. 


302  LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE. 

From  that  time  I  considered  him  as  under  my 
care,  visited  him  frequently,  and  prescribed  for 
symptoms  as  they  occurred,  endeavouring  by 
every  mean  in  my  power  to  alleviate  his  distress, 
and  conduce  to  his  comfort,  which  I  assure  you 
was  no  easy  service. 

"  In  the  course  of  a  fortnight  from  the  com 
mencement  of  my  attendance,  I  observed  that  his 
feet  were  oedematous,  and  his  abdomen  begin 
ning  to  be  distended  with  water,  which,  with  se 
veral  other  circumstances  equally  unequivocal, 
indicated  dropsy,  and  that  of  the  worst  descrip 
tion,  as  I  soon  found  it  pervaded  every  part  of 
his  body,  which  was  sufficiently  depending  to 
admit  the  lodgement  of  water,  and  such  as  I  had 
every  reason  to  believe  must  terminate  fatally  to 
persons  under  his  circumstances.  About  this 
time  he  became  very  sore,  the  water  which 
he  passed  when  in  bed  excoriating  the  parts  to 
which  it  applied;  and  this  kind  of  ulceration, 
which  was  sometimes  v  ry  extensive,  continued 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree  till  the  time  of  his 
death,  producing  infinite  pain  from  the  constant 
application  of  the  cause  which  at  first  induced  it. 
And  here  let  me  be  permitted  to  observe,  (lest 
blame  might  attach  to  those  whose  business  it  was 
to  pay  particular  attention  to  his  cleanliness  of 
person)  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible  to  effect 
that  purpose.  Cleanliness  appeared  to  make  no 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  803 

part  of  his  comfort;  he  seemed  to  have  a  singular 
aversion  to  soap  and  water ;  he  would  never  ask 
to  be  washed,  and  when  he  was  he  would  always 
make  objections  ;  and  it  was  not  unusual  to  wash 
and  to  dress  him  clean,  very  much  against  his  in 
clination.  In  this  deplorable  state,  with  confirm 
ed  dropsy,  attended  with  frequent  cough,  vomit 
ing  and  hiccough,  he  continued  growing  from 
bud  to  worse,  till  the  morning  of  the  8th  of  June, 
when  he  died.  Though  I  may  remark,  that  dur 
ing  the  last  three  weeks  of  his  life,  his  situation 
was  such,  that  his  decease  was  confidently  expect 
ed  every  day,  his  ulcers  having  assumed  a  gan 
grenous  appearance,  being  excessively  foetid,  and 
discoloured  blisters  having  taken  place  on  the 
soles  of  his  feet,  without  any  ostensible  cause, 
which  baffled  the  usual  attempts  to  arrest  their 
progress  :  and  when  we  consider  his  former  ha 
bits,  his  advanced  age,  the  feebleness  of  his  con 
stitution,  his  constant  practice  of  using  ardent  spi 
rits,  ad  libitum,  till  the  commencement  of  his  last 
illness,  so  far  from  wondering  that  he  died  so 
soon,  we  are  constrained  to  ask,  how  did  he  live 
so.  long  ? 

' c  Concerning  his  conduct  during  his  disease,  I 
have  not  much  to  remark,  though  the  little  I  have 
may  be  somewhat  interesting. 

"  Mr.  Paine  professed  to  be  above  the  fear  of 
death,  and  a  great  part  of  his  conversation  was 


304  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

principally  directed  to  give  the  impression,  that  he 
was  perfectly  willing  to  leave  this  world,  and  yet 
some  parts  of  his  conduct  are  with  difficulty  re- 
concileable  with  this  belief.  In  the  first  stages 
of  his  illness,  he  was  satisfied  to  be  left  alone  dur 
ing  the  day,  but  he  required  some  person  to  be 
with  him  at  night,  urging  as  his  reason,  that  he 
was  afraid,  that  he  should  die  when  unattended, 
and  at  this  period,  his  deportment  and  his  prin 
ciple  seemed  to  be  consistent;  so  much  so,  that 
a  stranger  would  judge  from  some  of  the  remarks 
he  would  make,  that  he  was  an  infidel.  I  recol 
lect  being  with  him  at  night,  watching ;  he  was 
very  apprehensive  of  a  speedy  dissolution,  and 
suffered  great  distress  of  body,  and  perhaps  of 
mind,  (for  he  was  waiting  the  event  of  an  ap 
plication  to  the  society  of  Friends,  for  permission 
that  his  corpse  might  be  deposited  in  their 
grave  ground,  and  had  reason  to  believe  that  the 
request  might  be  refused)  when  he  remarked  in 
these  words.  "  I  think  I  can  say  what  they  make 
Jesus  Christ  to  say — My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
thou  forsaken  me  ?"  He  went  on  to  observe  on 
the  want  of  that  respect  which  he  conceived 
he  merited,  when  I  observed  to  him,  that  I 
thought  that  his  corpse  should  be  matter  of  least 
concern  to  him;  that  those  whom  he  would 
leave  behind  him  would  see  that  he  was  pro 
perly  interred  ;  and  further,  that  it  would  be  of 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  305 

little  consequence  to  me  where  I  was  deposited, 
provided  I  was  buried :  upon  which  he  answered, 
that  he  had  nothing  else  to  talk  about,  and  that 
he  would  as  leave  talk  of  his  death  as  of  any 
thing,  but  that  he  was  not  so  indifferent  about  his 
corpse  as  I  appeared  to  be.  During  the  latter 
part  of  his  life,  though  his  conversation  was  equi 
vocal,  his  conduct  was  singular ;  he  would  not  be 
left  alone  night  or  day ;  he  not  only  required  to 
have  some  person  with  him,  but  he  must  see  that 
he  or  she  was  there,  and  would  not  allow  his  cur 
tain  to  be  closed  at  any  time  ;  and  if,  as  it  wrould 
sometimes  unavoidably  happen,  he  was  left  alone^ 
he  wrould  scream  and  holla,  until  some  person 
came  to  him :  when  relief  from  pain  would  admit, 
he  seemed  thoughtful  and  contemplative,  his  eyes 
being  generally  closed,  and  his  hands  folded  upon 
his  breast,  although  he  never  slept  without  the 
assistance  of  an  anodyne.  There  was  something 
remarkable  in  his  conduct  about  this  period, 
(which  comprises  about  two  weeks  immediately 
preceding  his  death)  particularly  when  we  reflect, 
that  Thomas  Paine  was  author  of  the  Age  of  Rea 
son.  He  would  call  out  during  his  paroxysms  of 
distress,  without  intermission,  "  O  Lord  help  me, 
God  help  me,  Jesus  Christ  help  me,  O  Lord  help 
me,"  &c.  repeating  the  same  expressions  without 
any  the  least  variation,  in  a  tone  of  voice  that 
would  alarm  the  house.  It  was  this  conduct  which 

O   n 


30(5  LIFE  OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

induced  me  to  think  that  he  had  abandoned  his 
former  opinions,  and  I  was  more  inclined  to  that 
belief,  when  I  understood  from  his  nurse,  (who  is 
a  very  serious,  and,  I  believe,  pious  woman,)  that 
he  would  occasionally  inquire,  when  he  saw  her 
engaged  with  a  book,  what  she  was  reading,  and 
being  answered,  and  at  the  same  time  asked  whe 
ther  she  should  read  aloud,(/)  he  assented,  and 
would  appear  to  give  particular  attention. 

"  I  took  occasion  during  the  night  of  the  5th 
and  6th  of  June,  to  test  the  strength  of  his  opinions 
respecting  revelation.  I  purposely  made  him  a 
very  late  visit ;  it  was  a  time  which  seemed  to  sort 
exactly  with  my  errand;  it  was  midnight,  he 
was  in  great  distress,  constantly  exclaiming  in  the 
\vords  above  mentioned,  when,  after  a  considera 
ble  preface,  I  addressed  him  in  the  following 
manner,  the  nurse  being  present. 

"  Mr.  Paine,  your  opinions,  by  a  large  portion 
of  the  community,  have  been  treated  with  defer 
ence  :  you  have  never  been  in  the  habit  of  mixing 
in  your  conversation,  words  of  course  :  you  have 
never  indulged  in  the  practice  of  profane  swear 
ing  :  you  must  be  sensible  that  we  are  acquainted 
with  your  religious  opinions  as  they  are  given  to 


(;;?)  The  book  she  usually  read  was    <\Ir.  Hobarl's  Compa 
nion  for  the  Altar. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE.  307 

the  world.  What  must  we  think  of  your  present 
conduct  ?  Why  do  you  call  upon  Jesus  Christ  to 
help  you?  Do  you  believe  that  he  can  help 
you  ?  Do  you  believe  in  the  divinity  of  Jesus 
Christ  ?  Come  now,  answer  me  honestly  ;  I 
want  an  answer  as  from  the  lips  of  a  dying  man, 
for  I  verily  believe  that  you  will  not  live  twenty- 
four  hours."  I  waited  some  time  at  the  end  of 
every  question  ;  he  did  not  answer,  but  ceased  • 
to  exclaim  in  the  above  manner.  Again  I 

addressed  him.  "  Mr.  Paine,  you  have  not  an 
swered  my  questions;  will  you  answer  them? 
Allow  me  to  ask  again — Do  you  believe  ?  or  let 
me  qualify  the  question — do  you  wish  to  believe 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  son  of  God  ?"  After  a 
pause  of  some  minutes,  he  answered,  "  I  have 
no  wish  to  believe  on  that  subject."  I  then  left 
him,  and  know  not  whether  he  afterwards  spoke 
to  any  person,  on  any  subject,  though  he  lived, 
as  I  before  observed,  till  the  morning  of  the  8th. 
Such  conduct,  under  usual  circumstances,  I  con 
ceive  absolutely  unaccountable,  though  with  dif 
fidence  I  would  remark,  not  so  much  so  in  the 
present  instance :  for  though  the  first  necessary 
and  general  result  of  conviction  be  a  sincere  wish 
to  atone  for  evil  committed,  yet  it  may  be  a  ques 
tion  worthy  of  able  consideration,  whether  ex 
cessive  pride  of  opinion,  consummate  vanity,  and 
inordinate  self-love,  might  not  prevent  or  retard 
that  otherwise  natural  consequence  ? 


808  LIFE    OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

For  my  own  part,  I  believe,  that  had  not  Tho 
mas  Paine  been  such  a  distinguished  infidel,  he 
would  have  left  less  equivocal  evidences  of  a 
change  of  opinion. 

Concerning  the  persons  who  visited  Mr.  Paine 
in  his  distress  as  his  personal  friends,  I  know  very 
little,  though  I  may  observe,  that  their  number 
was  small,  and  of  that  number,  there  were  not 
wanting  those  who  endeavoured  to  support  him 
in  his  deistical  opinions,  and  to  encourage  him  to 
die  "  like  a  man,"  to  "  hold  fast  his  integrity," 
lest  Christians,  or,  as  they  were  pleased  to  term 
them,  hypocrites,  might  take  advantage  of  his 
weakness,  and  furnish  themselves  with  a  weapon, 
by  which  they  might  hope  to  destroy  their  glori 
ous  system  of  morals. 

Numbers  visited  him  from  motives  of  benevo 
lence  and  Christian  charity,  endeavouring  to 
effect  a  change  of  mind  in  respect  to  his  religious 
sentiments.  The  labour  of  such  was  apparently 
lost,  and  they  pretty  generally  received  such 
treatment  from  him,  as  none  but  good  men  would 
risk  a  second  time,  though  some  of  these  persons 
called  frequently. 

"Be  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum,  is  a  maxim  to 
which,  under  certain  limitations,  I  do  willingly 
subscribe,  but  in  its  unqualified  extent  I  have  al 
ways  viewed  it  as  a  highly  erroneous  rule  of 
conduct,  and  although  it  might  have  originated 


LIFE    OF    1HOMAS    PAINE.  309 

in  a  heart  overflowing  with  benevolence,  yet  it 
must  be  allowed  that  it  paid  no  compliment  to 
its  judgement. — Youthful  indiscretions  and  the 
infirmities  of  nature  may  very  properly  require 
its  application,  but  it  must  be  recollected,  that 
there  are  vices  of  riper  years,  and  practices,  de 
duced  from  depraved  principle,  which  the  benefit 
of  society  requires .  should  not  be  buried  with 
the  bones  of  their  abettors.  I  make  this  obser 
vation  (otherwise  unnecessary)  lest  my  remarks 
may  be  attributed  to  unworthy  motives  : — The 
task  of  animadverting  on  the  disposition  and 
habits  of  persons  deceased,  must  always  be  disa 
greeable,  because  there  are  no  characters  without 
their  faults ;  but  in  the  present  case  it  is  peculiarly 
so,  since  the  utmost  partiality  will  have  infinitely 
less  to  applaud,  than  indifference  itself  will  find 
to  condemn,  but  as  they  may  be  supposed  largely 
to  depend  upon  education,  and  to  be  influenced 
much  by  habits  of  thinking,  in  the  instance  of 
Mr.  Paine  they  may  appear  to  require  special 
attention. 

"  His  disposition  was  singularly  unfortunate, 
inasmuch  as  it  required  great  correction,  and  ad 
mitted  of  none — his  anger  was  easily  kindled, 
and  I  doubt  not  that  his  resentments  were  lasting. 
His  vanity  and  self-love  were  so  excessive,  that 
to  differ  from  him  in  opinion  was,  in  his  esti 
mation,  to  be  deficient  in  common  understanding ; 


310  LIFE   0F    THOMAS    PAINE. 

and  his  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  Christianity 
was  so  rancorous,  that  in  the  early  part  of  his  ill 
ness,  he  would  treat  its  professors  with  rudeness. 
I  have  had  no  opportunity  of  judging  of  the 
humanity  of  his  disposition,  but  I  may  remark, 
that  he  considered  himself  under  no  obligation 
to  those  who  administered  to  him  in  his  illness, 
and  acted  accordingly :  he  was  penurious  to  an 
extreme ;  would  sometimes  dispense  with  a  com 
fort  rather  than  purchase  it ;  and  as  he  set  a  higher 
value  on  money  than  it  really  merited,  he  thought 
such  obligations  completely  cancelled  by  payment 
of  that  which  he  could  not  withhold.  In  the  lat 
ter  part  of  his  life,  he  had  his  companions,  though 
lie  seemed  unfitted  for  sociability ;  and  perhaps 
the  reason  why  he  affected  company  rather  infe 
rior  to  himself  in  point  of  understanding  and  ac 
quirement,  might  be  found  in  the  peculiarities 
of  his  temper,  which  required  acquiescence  in  his 
opinions  to  recommend  to  his  attention. 
^  "In  fine,  if  Mr.  Paine  had  amiable  qualities,  I 
have  been  singularly  unfortunate  in  never  having 
had  any  evidence  of  them ;  and  though  you  may 
conceive  the  above  remarks  too  severe,  I  can  as 
sure  you,  sir,  that  they  are  the  result  of  my  seri 
ous  convictions ;  for  during  the  whole  course  of 
his  illness,  his  petulence,  vanity,  and  self-will  were 
so  excesssve,  that  I  have  been  constrained  fre 
quently  to  remark,  that  he  of  all  others  should, 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  311 

from  motives  of  policy,  have  been  induced  to  keep 
terms  with  Christians,  as  his  temper  was  such  as 
to  preclude  the  possibility  of  his  enjoying  the  sin 
cerity  of  friendship,  and  none  but  they  (and  the 
best  of  them  too)  could  possess  charity  sufficient 
to  cover  its  manifold  imperfections. 

"  Your's,  with  due  consideration, 

"  JAMES  R.  MANLEY. 
MR.  CHEETHAM. 

At  nine  o'clock  of  the  morning  of  the  9th  of 
June,  the  day  after  his  decease,  he  was  taken 
from  his  house  at  Greenwich,  attended  by  seven 
persons,  to  New-Rochelle,  where  he  was  interred 
on  his  farm.  A  stone  has  been  placed  at  the 
head  of  his  grave,  according  to  the  directions  of 
his  will,  with  the  following  inscription:  "  Thomas 
Paine,  author  of  Common  Sense  :  died  June  8, 
1809,  aged  72  years  and  5  months." 

Exclusive  of  Mr.  Hicks,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Milledol- 
lar,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cunningham,  and  one  or  two 
other  gentlemen,  who  visited  him  from  humane 
and  Christian  motives,  he  was  abandoned  on  his 
death-bed,  except  by  a  few  obscure  and  illiterate 
men,  his  former  bottle  companions,  who  attended 
him,  merely,  it  should  seem,  to  urge  him  to  per 
severe  to  the  end  in  his  deistical  opinions.  What 
his  admissions  would  have  been  during  those 
6  compunctious  visit  ings  of  nature' which  he  ex- 


312  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAINE. 

perienced,  had  it  not  been  for  the  whips  and 
spurs  of  those  persons,  we  cannot  positively  say. 
That  he  manifested  symptoms  of   repentance, 
something  like  an  inward  willingness  to  believe 
in  Jesus  Christ,    and  yet   an  outward  pride  of 
obstinacy  in  denying  that  willingness  in  words, 
is  certain  from  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Manley  and 
Mrs.  Hedden.     But  we  have  no  evidence  of  his 
conversion.     His  seemingly  attentive  listening  to 
Mrs.  Hedden,  when  reading  the  bible,  if  not  the 
effect  of  debility  and  a  wish  for  repose,  is  an 
indication   rather  of   a  mitigation  of  his  fury 
against  it,  than  of  his  conversion  to  it.     It  was 
a  passive  act :   there  was  nothing  in  it  either 
active  or  certain.     It  was  after  this  that  Dr.  Man- 
ley  interrogated  him.     He  paused.     Possibly  for 
a  moment  he  doubted.      But  there  is  nothing 
equivocal  in  his  answer.     He  had  <(  no  wish  to 
believe  on  that  subject."     In  something  less  than 
forty-eight  hours   after  he   died.      During  this 
time  he  had  no  conversation  with  any  one  respect 
ing   the  Christian  religion.      The  language  of 
action  is  sincere.     His  fear  of  being  alone  is 
evidence  against  his  conversion.     The  last  mo 
ments   of    Locke    and   Adclison    were  sweetly 
tranquil. 

His  association  with  low  and  disreputable 
persons,  is  attributable  to  his  attachment  to  ar 
dent  spirits,  and  his  love  of  personal  distinction. 


LIFE  OF   THOMAS   PAINE.  31S 

Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  could  be  gra 
tified  in  respectable  company.  He  looked  for 
adoration  with  as  much  constancy  as  he  did 
for  brandy.  Since  over  poor  ignorant  rnen  he 
could  tyrannize  as  much  as  he  pleased,  and  yet 
be  looked  up  to  by  them  with  a  sort  of  reveren 
tial  awe,  he  chose  them  for  his  associates.  He 
who  could  not  listen  with  admiration  and  assent 
to  all  he  would  say,  and  with  a  kind  of  pleasure 
bear  to  be  called  blockhead  and  fool,  and  other 
names  of  insult  and  reproach,  was  no  companion 
for  him.  And  as  the  monarch  of  such  men  he  was 
not  content  with  limited  powers.  Nothing  short 
of  absolute  despotism  would  do  for  him.  Peter, 
of  Russia,  got  drunk,  and,  with  his  own  hand, 
committed  murder  for  his  amusement.  Paine, 
reeling  amidst  his  unlettered  subjects,  was  equally 
a  barbarian  in  manners,  though  not  quite  so 
atrocious  in  acts. 

Of  his  moral  character,  nothing,  perhaps,  can 
be  added  to  the  facts  which  have  already  been 
stated.  His  conduct  towards  his  wife  were  suf 
ficient  to  blast  the  memory  of  a  man  even  in  all 
other  respects  virtuous ;  but  Paine  had  no  good 
qualities.  Incapable  of  friendship,  he  was  vain, 
envious,  malignant;  in  France  cowardly,  and 
every  where  tyrannical.  In  his  private  dealings 
he  W7as  unjust,  never  thinking  of  paying  for  what 
he  had  contracted,  and  always  cherishing  deadly 
PP 


314  LIFE   OF   THOMAS    PAINE. 

resentments  against  those  who  by  law  compelled 
him  to  do  justice.  To  those  who  had  been  kind 
to  him  he  was  more  than  ungrateful,  for  to  ingra 
titude,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Monroe,  he  added 
mean  and  detestable  fraud.  He  was  guilty  of 
the  wrorst  species  of  seduction;  the  alienation  of 
a  wife  and  children  from  a  husband  and  a  father. 
Filthy  and  drunken,  he  was  a  compound  of  all 
the  vices. 

His  system  of  government  was  simple,  and 
therefore  despotick.  Universal  suffrage — an 
nual  elections — a  legislature  consisting  of  one 
assembly,  and  a  plural  executive,  like  the  execu 
tive  directory  of  France,  elected  by  universal  suf 
frage,  were  its  elements.  It  is  not  certain  that 
judges,  according  to  his  scheme,  were  to  be  elect 
ed  by  universal  suffrage,  but  it  is  that  they  were 
to  be  dependent  on  the  popular  will.  His  one- 
eyed  legislature  was  to  have  supreme  power,  and 
by  the  very  nature  of  its  constitution  the  people 
would  controul  it. 

Evidence  of  universal  suffrage  and  annual  elec 
tions  we  have  in  his  French  constitution  of  1793, 
as  well  as  in  all  his  writings,  except  his  letter  to 
the  people  and  armies  of  France,  on  the  subject 
of  the  constitution  of  Boissy  D'Anglas.  His  pre 
dilection  for  a  plural  executive  is  manifest  in  that 
work,  as  well  as  in  others. 


LIFE   OF   THQMAS   PAINE,  315 

In  one  of  his  letters  to  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  written  at  Washington,  he  says,  referring 
to  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  : — "  Many 
were  shocked  at  the  idea  of  placing,  what  is  called 
executive  power,  in  the  hands  of  a  single  indivi 
dual"  "  The  executive  part  of  the  federal  go 
vernment  was  made  for  a  man,  and  those  who  con 
sented,  against  their  judgment,  to  place  executive 
power  in  the  hands  of  a  single  individual-)  reposed 
more  on  the  supposed  moderation  of  the  person 
they  had  in  view,  than  on  the  wisdom  of  the 
measure  itself. "(/O 

When  our  constitution  was  formed,  Paine  was 
in  Europe,  and  had  he  indeed  been  here,  he 
could  have  known  but  little  of  what  took  place  in 
the  convention,  every  member  being  either  sworn 
or  put  upon  his  honour  not  to  divulge  its  pro 
ceedings.  Our  knowledge  of  the  motions,  speech 
es,  and  opinions  of  the  members,  which  is  very 
limited,  is  principally  derived  from  Mr.  Luther 
Martin's  report  to  the  legislature  of  Maryland,  of 
which  state  he  was  a  delegate.  But  minute  and 
elaborate  as  it  is,  there  is  in  it  nothing  that  I  recol 
lect  to  authorize  even  a  conjecture,  that  there  way 
a  single  member  favourable  to  a  plural  executive. 
The  only  contest,  as  far  as  we  understand  itt 


Letter  ?. 


316  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    PAJNE. 

which  on  this  subject  arose  was,  and  it  was  one 
of  vehemence,  whether  the  executive  should  in 
fact  be  a  monarch  with  the  title  of  President  ? 
Paine 's  intimation,  that  a  plural  executive  was 
warmly  agitated  and  reluctantly  yielded,  is  in  all 
probability  one  of  his  bold  presumptions  on  as 
sumed  ignorance.  Such  an  executive,  besides 
its  absurdity,  is  in  its  nature  a  tyranny.  We 
are  convinced  that  it  is  so  by  theory,  and  w<e 
know  that  it  is  so  in  fact.  Unavoidably  factious, 
it  cannot  but  break  up  a  nation  into  as  many  par 
ties  as  it  has  members.  Always  distracted,  it 
must  always  be  feeble. 

His  attachment  to  a  legislature  consisting  of 
one  body,  is  indicated  in  the  Rights  of  Man. 
"  The  objection,  he  says,  against  a  single  house 
is,  that  it  is  always  in  a  condition  of  committing 
itself  too  soon.  But  it  should  be  remembered, 
that  when  there  is  a  constitution  which  defines 
the  power  and  establishes  the  principles  within 
which  a  legislature  shall  act,  there  is  already  a 
more  effectual  check  provided,  and  more  power 
fully  operating,  than  any  other  check  can  be."(o) 

That  which  he  considers  as  most  powerfully 
checking  precipitancy  of  action,  has  no  efficacy. 
The  declaration  of  rights  of  the  French  National 


(o)    Rights  of  Man,  part  2,   works,    vol.  2,  p.  184,   Plnl. 

1797. 


LIFE   OF    THOMAS   PAINE,  317 

Assembly,  which  was  in  truth  a  constitution,  had 
no  coercive  effect  on  the  convention.  This  "  Sin 
gle  House,"  always  passionate,  as  every  single 
house  must  be,  never  had  time  for  cool  delibera 
tion.  It  conceived  in  a  passion ;  it  executed  in  a 
rage.  Nor  had  it  any  thing  to  restrain  it,  for  how 
is  it  possible  for  a  written  constitution  to  assuage 
the  most  furious  of  the  passions  ?  A  constitution, 
in  such  a  government  as  Paine  was  in  favor  of, 
would  be  not  the  least  of  absurdities.  Under  the 
influence  of  universal  suffrage  and  annual  elec 
tions,  nothing  could  be  attended  to  in  a  single  bo 
died  legislature,  but  party  strifes,  victories,  pro 
scriptions,  and  oppression.  Party- voters  would  be 
gratified,  or  party-representatives  would  be  dis 
missed  !  The  tyranny  of  an  absolute  monarch 
must  fall  infinitely  short  of  the  tyranny  of  such  a 
government. 

Formerly,  Pennsylvania  was  at  once  oppressed 
and  disgraced  by  a  similar  anarchy.  Of  this, 
Paine (/))  was  in  all  probability  the  author.  Mr. 
Adams  has  rescued  the  memory  of  Franklin  from 
the  infamy  of  the  act.  But  even  in  Pennsylvania, 


(/')  "In  1776, and  1777 there  had  been  great  disputes  in  con 
gress  and  the  several  states  concerning  a  proper  constitution 
for  the  several  states  to  adopt  for  their  government.  A  con 
vention  in  Pennsylvania  had  adopted  a  government  in  one  re- 
presentive  assemfoty,  and  Dr.  Franklin  was  president  of  that 
convention.  The  Doctor  when  he  went  to  France,  in  1776, 
carried  with  him  the  printed  copy  of  that  constitution,  and  it 


318  LIFE   OF   THOMAS   PAINE. 

full  of  democratick  faction  and  anarchy  as  thai; 
state  always  is,  the  single  representative  assem 
bly,  perpetually  despotick,  became  universally 
odious.  Yet  the  constitution  was  so  constructed 
as  to  require  a  Senate,  but  the  unorganized  se 
nate  was  if  possible  more  odd  than  the  organized 
assembly.  Section  15,  of  that  constitution  says  : 
— "  To  the  end  that  laws,  before  they  are  enact 
ed,  be  more  maturely  considered,  and  the  incon 
venience  of  hasty  determinations  as  much  as  pos 
sible  prevented,  all  bills  of  a  publick  nature  shall 
be  printed  for  the  consideration  of  the  people  " 

Here  the  people  stood  in  the  place  of  a  Senate  ! 
Bills  were  to  be  printed  for  their  information  and 
decision  !  Bills  therefore  could  not  become  laws 
until  this  coolj  sensible,  and  dignified  senate  had 


was  immediately  propagated  through  France,  that  this  was  the 
plan  of  government  of  Mr.  Franklin.  In  truth  it  was  not 
Franklin's,  but  Timothy  Matlock,  Jamej,Xannon,  Thomas 
Young,  and  Thomas  Painey  were  the  authors  of  it.  Mr.  Tur- 
got,  the  Duke  de  la  Rochefoucault,  Mr.  Condorcet,  and  ma 
ny  others,  became  enamoured  with  the  constitution  of  Mr. 
Franklin,  and  in  my  opinion  the  two  last  owed  their  final  and 
fatal  catastrophe  to  this  blind  love."  President  Adams's 
Letter  to  S.  Perley,  written  June  19,  1809  ;  see  the  American 
Citizen  of  September  2,  1809. 

The  conclusion  of  Mr.  Adams  is  no  doubt  correct.  Con 
dorcet  became  an  advocate  of  a  single  representative  assem 
bly.  He  was  gratified.  The  convention  was  established,  and 
it  is  to  the  uncontrolled  fury  and  tyranny  of  the  convention 
that  his  death  is  attributable.  May  not  Panic's  constitution  of 
Pennsylvania  have  been  the  cause  of  the  tyranny  of  Robes 
pierre  ? 


LIFE   OF   THOMAS  PATNEr  319 

decided !  This  senate  of  all  that  was  eloquent, 
magnanimous,  and  wise,  could  negative,  or  the 
appeal  to  it  were  a  mockery ;  it  could  affirm, 
or  it  were  useless.  But  it  could  do  neither  with 
out  mature  deliberation  !  Where — how  was  it  to 
deliberate  ?  In  the  senate  house  ?  No,  but  in  ta 
verns.  Orderly  ?  The  whole  system  and  pro- 
cesss  was  disorder.  What  could  be  expected  in 
such  meetings  but  a  tumult  of  the  passions  ?  Con 
flicting  demagogues  assembled  the  multitude  in 
ale  houses — harangued  them — tore  the  state  to 
pieces  in  an  ardent  pursuit  of  personal  aggran 
dizement — oppressed  as  they  were  victorious, 
and  committed  injustice  as  they  were  powerful. 
Such  was  Paine's  constitution  of  Pennsylvania.  It 
did  not  however  last  long.  In  1790,  it  was  su- 
perceded  by  the  present  constitution  of  that  state. 
But  it  has  left  behind  it  the  most  deleterious  effects. 
There  is  yet  a  party  there,  powerful  in  numbers, 
in  favour  of  going  back  to  it ;  a  party  avowedly 
opposed  to  the  independence  of  judges,  to  trial  by 
jury,  and  to  every  attribute  of  legitimate  polity,  to 
which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  look,  and  on 
which  alone  we  can  rely,  as  efficient  guards  of 
life,  liberty,  and  property. 

THE    END. 


APPENDIX. 


FROM    THE   JOURNALS    OF    CONGRESS. 

FIRST  SESSION TENTH  CONGRESS. 

In  tlic  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States,  ^th  February,  1808. 

Mr.  CLINTON  presented  a  representation  of 
Thomas  Paine,  stating  various  services  performed 
by  him  for  the  United  States,  during  the  revolution 
ary  war  with  Great  Britain;  and  praying  that  con 
gress  will  take  the  same  into  consideration,  and 
grant  him  such  compensation  therefor,  as  to 
their  wisdom  and  justice  shall  seem  meet. 

The  said  representation  was  read  and  referred 
to  the  committee  of  claims. 

[No  report  made  during  this  session.] 

SECOND  SESSION TENTH  CONGRESS. 

December  \§th,  1809. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Johnson, 

Ordered,  That  the  letter  and  representation  of 
Thomas  Paine,  presented  on  the  4th  of  February 
last,  be  referred  to  the  committee  of  claims. 


322  APPENDIX. 

On  the  1st  of  February,  1809,  the  committee 
of  claims  made  a  report,  which  was  read  and 
ordered  to  lie  on  the  table. 

[Not  further  acted  on  during  this  session.] 

ELEVENTH  CONGRESS....FIRST  SESSION. 

31s*  May,  1809. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Lyon, 

Ordered,  That  the  representation  of  Thomas 
Paine,  of  the  city  of  New- York,  presented  on 
the  4th  of  February,  1808,  be  referred  to  the 
committee  of  claims. 

[Congress  adjourned  without  any  report  being 
made  by  the  committee  on  the  subject.] 

Report  of  the  committee  of  claims  on  a  letter  a?id 
representation  of  Thomas  Paine,  referred  the 
fifteenth  December  last. 

February  1,  1809.     Read,  and  ordered  to  lie  on  the  table. 

REPORT... 

The  memorialist  states,  that  in  the  beginning 
of  February,  1781,  he  sailed  from  Boston  in  the 
frigate  Alliance,  with  colonel  Laurens,  who  wras 
appointed  by  Congress  to  negociate  a  loan  with 
the  French  government,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
United  States ;  that  he  aided  in  effecting  the  im 
portant  object  of  this  mission,  and  thus  voluntarily 
rendered  an  essential  service  to  the  country,  for 


APPENDIX.  323 

which  he  has  received  no  compensation.  This 
memorial  was  presented  to  congress  at  their  last 
session,  unaccompanied  with  any  evidence  in 
support  of  the  statement  of  facts.  The  committee 
of  claims,  to  whom  it  was  then  referred,  endea 
voured  to  procure,  from  proper  sources,  such  in 
formation  as  would  guide  them  in  making  an 
equitable  decision  upon  the  case.  The  journals 
of  congress,  under  the  former  confederation,  were 
diligently  examined,  but  nothing  was  therein 
found,  tending  to  shew  that  Mr.  Paine  was,  in 
any  manner,  connected  with  the  mission  of  col 
onel  Laurens.  It  appears  that  on  the  1 8th  day  of 
Octqber,  1733,  two  resolutions  were  adopted  in 
favour  of  major  Jackson  :  one  for  defraying  cer 
tain  expenses  incident  to  the  mission ;  the  other 
allowing  him  fourteen  hundred  and  fifty  dollars, 
as  a  full  compensation  for  his  services,  while  act 
ing  as  secretary  to  colonel  Laurens.  A  letter 
from  the  vice-president,  in  answer  to  one  address 
ed  to  him,  by  the  chairman  of  the  committee  of 
claims,  is  herewith  presented.  It  will  be  observed, 
that  the  statement  of  this  gentleman  is  from  in 
formation,  and  not  from  his  own  knowledge. 
That  Mr.  Paine  embarked  with  colonel  Laurens 
from  the  United  States  for  France,  may  be  ad 
mitted  ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  was  em 
ployed  by  the  government,  or  even  solicited  by 
any  officer  thereof,  to  aid  in  the  accomplishment 


APPENDIX. 

of  the  object  of  the  mission,  with  which  colonel 
Laurens  was  intrusted,  or  that  he  took  any  part 
whatever  after  his  arrival  in  France  in  forward 
ing  the  negotiation ;  your  committee  are,  there 
fore,  of  opinion,  that  the  memorialist  has  not 
established  the  fact  of  his  having  rendered  the 
service  for  which  he  asks  to  be  compensated. 

On  the  26th  of  August,  1785,  congress,  by  a 
resolution,  declared  that  Thomas  Paine  was  enti 
tled  to  a  liberal  gratification  from  the  United 
States  for  his  unsolicited  and  continued  labours  in 
explaining  and  in-forcing  the  principles  of  the  late 
revolution ;  and  on  the  3d  of  October  following, 
the  board  of  treasury  were  directed  to  take  order 
for  paying  Mr.  Paine  three  thousand  dollars  for  the 
considerations  mentioned  in  the  above  resolution. 
This  sum  it  appears  Mr.  Paine  received  on  the 
1 1th  of  October,  1 785.  That  Mr.  Paine  rendered 
great  and  eminent  services  to  the  United  States 
during  their  struggle  for  liberty  and  indepen 
dence,  cannot  be  doubted  by  any  person  acquaint 
ed  with  his  labors  in  the  cause,  and  attached  to 
the  principles  of  the  contest.  Whether  he  has 
been  generously  requited  by  his  country  for  his 
meritorious  exertions,  is  a  question  not  submitted 
to  your  committee,  or  within  their  province  to 
decide. 

The   following  resolution  is   offered   to  the 
House ; 


APPENDIX,  325 

Resolved,  That  Thomas  Paine  have  leave  to 
withdraw  his  memorial  and  the  papers  accompa 
nying  the  same. 


NEW- YORK,  January  21,   1808. 
To  the  honourable  tJie  representatives 
of  the  United  States. 

The  purport  of  this  address  is  to  state  a  claim 
I  feel  myself  entitled  to  make  on  the  United 
States,  leaving  it  to  their  representatives  in  con 
gress  to  decide  on  its  worth  and  its  merits.  The 
case  is  as  follows : 

Towards  the  latter  end  of  the  year  1 780,  the 
continental  money  had  become  so  depreciated,  a 
paper  dollar  not  being  more  than  a  cent,  that  it 
seemed  next  to  impossible  to  continue  the  war. 

As  the  United  States  were  then  in  alliance  w7ith 
France,  it  became  necessary  to  make  France  ac 
quainted  with  our  real  situation.  I  therefore 
drew  up  a  letter  to  Count  Vergennes,  stating  un- 
disguisedly  the  true  case,  concluding  with  the 
request  whether  France  could  not  either  as  a 
subsidy  or  a  loan,  supply  the  United  States  with 
a  million  sterling,  and  continue  that  supply  an 
nually  during  the  war. 

I  shewed  the  letter  to  M.  Marbois,  secretary  to 
the  French  minister.  His  remark  upon  it  was, 


326  APPENDIX. 

that  a  million  sent  out  of  the  nation  exhausted  it 
more  than  ten  millions  spent  in  it.  I  then  shewed 
it  to  Ralph  Isard,  member  of  congress  for  South- 
Carolina.  He  borrowed  the  letter  of  me  and 
said,  we  will  endeavor  to  do  something  about  it 
in  congress. 

Accordingly,  congress  appointed  col.  John 
Laurens,  then  aid  to  general  Washington,  to  go 
to  France  and  make  representation  of  our  situa 
tion  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  assistance.  Col. 
Laurens  wished  to  decline  the  mission,  and  that 
congress  would  appoint  colonel  Hamilton,  which 
congress  did  not  choose  to  do. 

Colonel  Laurens  then  came  to  state  the  case  to 
me.  He  said  he  was  enough  acquainted  w7ith  the 
military  difficulties  of  the  army,  but  that  he  was 
not  enough  acquainted  with  political  affairs,  nor 
with  the  resources  of  the  country ;  but,  said  he, 
if  you  will  go  with  me,  I  will  accept,  w7hich  I 
agreed  to  do,  and  did  do. 

We  sailed  from  Boston  in  the  Alliance  frigate, 
captain  Barry,  the  beginning  of  February,  1781, 
and  arrived  at  L'Orient  the  beginning  of  March. 
The  aid  obtained  from  France  was  six  million 
livres  as  a  present,  and  ten  millions  as  a  loan  bor 
rowed  in  Holland  on  the  security  of  France.  We 
sailed  from  Brest  in  the  French  Resolve  frigate  the 
first  of  June,  and  arrived  at  Boston  the  25th  Au 
gust,  bringing  with  us  two  millions  and  a  half  in 


APPENDIX. 

silver,  and  convoying  a  ship  and  a  brig  laden  with 
clothing  and  military  stores.  The  money  was 
transported  in  sixteen  ox  teams  to  the  national 
bank  at  Philadelphia,  which  enabled  the  army  to 
move  to  Yorktown  to  attack,  in  conjunction  with 
the  French  army  under  Rochambeau,  the  British 
army  under  Cornwallis.  As  I  never  had  a  cent 
for  this  service,  I  fee*!  myself  entitled,  as  the  coun 
try  is  now  in  a  state  of  prosperity,  to  state  the 
case  to  congress. 

As  to  my  political  works,  beginning  with  the 
pamphlet  Common  Sense,  published  the  beginning 
of  January,  1776,  which  awakened  America  to 
a  declaration  of  independence,  as  the  president 
and  vice-president  both  know,  as  they  were 
works  done  from  principle  I  cannot  dishonour 
that  principle  by  asking  any  reward  for  them. 
The  country  has  been  benefitted  by  them,  and  I 
make  my  self  happy  in  the  knowledge  of  it.  Jt 
is,  however,  proper  to  me  to  add,  that  the  mere 
independence  of  America,  were  it  to  have  been 
followed  by  a  system  of  government  modelled 
after  the  corrupt  system  of  the  English  govern 
ment,  it  would  not  have  interested  me  with  the 
unabated  ardour  it  did.  It  was  to  bring  forward 
and  establish  the  representative  system  of  govern 
ment,  as  the  work  itself  will  shew,  that  was  the 
leading  principle  with  me  in  writing  that  work 
and  all  my  other  works  during  the  progress  of 


328  APPENDIX. 

the  revolution  :  And  I  followed  the  same  princi 
ple  in  writing  the  Rights  of  Man  in  England. 

There  is  a  resolve  of  the  old  congress,  while 
they  sat  at  New- York,  of  a  grant  to  me  of  three 
thousand  dollars — the  resolve  is  put  in  handsome 
language,  but  it  has  relation  to  a  matter  which 
it  does  not  express.  Elbridge  Gerry  was  chair 
man  of  the  committee  who  brought  in  the  resolve. 
If  congress  should  judge  proper  to  refer  this  me 
morial  to  a  committee,  I  will  inform  that  com 
mittee  of  the  particulars  of  it. 

I  have  also  to  state  to  congress,  that  the  author 
ity  of  the  old  congress  was  become  so  reduced 
towards  the  latter  end  of  the  war,  as  to  be  unable 
to  hold  the  states  together.  Congress  could  do 
no  more  than  recommend,  of  which  the  states 
frequently  took  no  notice,  and  when  they  did,  it 
was  never  uniformly. 

After  the  failure  of  the  five  per  cent,  duty,  re 
commended  by  congress  to  pay  the  interest  of  a 
loan  to  be  borrowed  in  Holland,  I  wrote  to  Chan 
cellor  Livingston,  then  minister  for  foreign  affairs, 
and  Robert  Morris,  minister  of  finance,  and 
proposed  a  method  for  getting  over  the  whole 
difficulty  at  once,  which  was  by  adding  a  con 
tinental  legislature  to  congress,  who  should  be 
empowered  to  make  laws  for  the  Union,  instead 
of  recommending  them.  As  the  method  propos 
ed  met  with  their  full  approbation,  I  held  myself 


APPENDIX.  329 

in  reserve  to  take  the  subject  up  whenever  a  direct 
occasion  occurred. 

In  a  conversation  afterwards  with  governor 
Clinton,  of  New- York,  now  vice-president,  it 
was  judged,  that  for  the  purpose  of  my  going 
fully  into  the  subject,  and  to  prevent  any  miscon 
struction  of  my  motive  or  object,  it  would  be  best 
that  I  received  nothing  from  congress,  but  leave 
it  to  the  states  individually  to  make  me  what  ac 
knowledgment  they  pleased. 

The  state  of  New- York  made  me  a  present  of 
a  farm,  which,  since  my  return  to  America,  I 
have  found  it  necessary  to  sell:(*)  and  the  state  of 
Pennsylvania  voted  me  five  hundred  pounds,  their 
currency.  But  none  of  the  states  to  the  eastward 
of  New- York,  nor  to  the  south  of  Philadelphia 
ever  made  me  the  least  acknowledgment.  They 
had  received  benefits  from  me,  which  they  accept 
ed,  and  there  the  matter  ended.  This  story  will  not 
tell  well  in  history.  All  the  civilized  world  knows 
I  have  been  of  great  service  to  the  United  States, 
and  have  generously  given  away  talents  that 
would  have  made  me  a  fortune. 

I  much  question  if  an  instance  is  to  be  found  in 
ancient  or  modern  times  of  a  man  who  had  no 


(*)  To  Mr.  Shute,  in  1806,  but  as  Mr.  Shute  died  shortly 
after,  and  his  widow  found  it  to  be  an  inconvenience,  Paine,  at 
her  solicitation,  took  it  back. 

Rr 


330  APPENDIX. 

personal  interest  in  the  cause  he  took  up,  that  of 
independence  and  the  establishment  of  the  repre 
sentative  system  of  government,  and  who  sought 
neither  place  nor  office  after  it  was  established, 
that  persevered  in  the  same  undeviating  princi 
ples  as  I  have  done  for  more  than  thirty  years, 
and  that  in  spite  of  difficulties,  dangers  and  incon- 
veniencies,  of  which  I  have  had  my  share. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 


NEW-YORK,  Feb.  14,   1808. 
Citizen  Representatives^ 

In  my  memorial  to  congress  of  the  2 1  st  of  Ja 
nuary,  I  spoke  of  a  resolve  of  the  old  congress  of 
three  thousand  dollars  to  me,  and  said  that  the 
resolve  had  relation  to  a  matter  it  did  not  express ; 
that  Elbridge  Gerry  was  chairman  of  the  com 
mittee  that  brought  in  that  resolve,  and  that  if 
congress  referred  the  memorial  to  a  committee,  I 
would  write  to  that  committee  and  inform  them 
of  the  particulars  of  it.  It  has  relation  to  my 
conduct  in  the  affair  of  Silas  Deane  and  Beau- 
uiarchais.  The  case  is  as  follows. 

When  I  was  appointed  secretary  to  the  com 
mittee  for  foreign  affairs,  all  the  papers  of  the 
secret  committee,  none  of  which  had  been  seen 
by  congress,  came  into  my  hands.  I  saw  by  the 


APPENDIX.  331 

Correspondence  of  that  committee  with  persons  in 
Europe,  particularly  with  Arthur  Lee,  that  the 
stores  which  Silas  Deane  and  Beaumarchais  pre 
tended  they  had  purchased  were  a  present  from 
the  court  of  France,  and  came  out  of  the  king's 
arsenals.  But  as  this  was  prior  to  the  alliance, 
and  while  the  English  ambassador  (Stormont) 
was  at  Paris,  the  court  of  France  wished  it  not 
to  be  known,  and  therefore  proposed  that  "  a 
small  quantity  of  tobacco  or  some  other  produce 
should  be  sent  to  the  Cape  (Cape  Francaise)  to 
give  it  the  air  of  a  mercantile  transaction,  repeat 
ing  over  and  over  again  that  it  was  for  a  cover 
only,  and  not  for  payment,  as  the  whole  remit 
tance  was  gratuitous."  See  Arthur  Lee's  letters 
to  the  secret  committee.  See  also  B.  Franklin's. 

Knowing  these  things,  and  seeing  that  the  pub 
lic  were  deceived  and  imposed  upon  by  the  pre 
tensions  of  Deane,  I  took  the  subject  up,  and  pub 
lished  three  pieces  in  Dunlap's  Philadelphia  pa 
per,  headed  with  the  title  of  "  Common  Sense  to 
the  Public  on  Mr.  Deane 's  affairs."  John  Jay  wag 
then  president  of  congress,  Mr.  Laurens  having 
resigned  in  disgust. 

After  the  third  piece  appeared,  I  received  an 
order,  dated  congress,  and  signed  John  Jay,  that 
"  Thomas  Paine  do  attend  at  the  bar  of  this 
house  immediately,"  which  I  did. 

Mr.  Jay  took  up  a  newspaper  and  said,  "  Here 


332  APPENDIX. 

is  Mr.  Dunlap's  paper  of  December  29.  In  it  is  a 
piece  entitled  Common  Sense  to  the  Public  on 
Mr.  Deane's  affairs,  I  am  directed  by  congress  to 
ask  you  if  you  are  the  author."  Yes,  sir,  I  am 
the  author  of  that  piece.  Mr.  Jay  put  the  same 
question  on  the  other  two  pieces  and  received 
the  same  answer.  He  then  said,  you  may  with 
draw. 

As  soon  as  I  was  gone,  John  Pen,  of  North- 
Carolina,  moved  that  "  Thomas  Paine  be  dis 
charged  from  the  office  of  secretary  to  the  com 
mittee  for  foreign  affairs,"  and  prating  Gouver- 
neur  Morris  seconded  the  motion,  but  it  was  lost 
when  put  to  the  vote,  the  states  being  equally  di 
vided.  I  then  wrote  to  congress  requesting  a 
hearing,  and  Mr.  Laurens  made  a  motion  for  that 
purpose  which  was  negatived.  The  next  day  I 
sent  in  my  resignation,  saying,  that  c<  as  I  can 
not  consistently  with  my  character  as  a  freeman 
submit  to  be  censured  unheard,  therefore,  to  pre 
serve  that  character  and  maintain  that  right,  I 
think  it  my  duty  to  resign  the  office  of  secretary 
to  the  committee  for  foreign  affairs,  and  I  do 
hereby  resign  the  same." 

After  this  I  lived  as  well  as  I  could,  hiring  my 
self  as  a  clerk  to  Owen  Biddle  of  Philadelphia, 
till  the  legislature  of  Pennsylvania  appointed  me 
clerk  of  the  general  assembly.  But  I  still  went 
on  with  my  publications  tm  Deane's  affairs,  till 


APPENDIX. 


335 


the  fraud  became  so  obvious  that  congress  were 
ashamed  of  supporting  him,  and  he  absconded. 
He  went  from  Philadelphia  to  Virginia  and  took 
shipping  for  France,  and  got  over  to  England 
where  he  died.  Doctor  Cutting  told  me  he  took 
poison.  Gouverneur  Morris  by  way  of  making 
apology  for  his  conduct  in  that  affair,  said  to  me 
after  my  return  from  France  with  Colonel  Lau- 
rens,  well !  we  were  all  duped,  and  I  among  the 
rest. 

As  the  salary  I  had  as  secretary  to  the  commit 
tee  of  foreign  affairs  was  but  small,  being  only 
800  dollars  a  year,  and  as  that  had  been  fretted 
down  by  the  depreciation  to  less  than  a  fifth  of  its 
nominal  value,  I  wrote  to  congress  then  sitting 
at  New- York,  (it  was  after  the  war)  to  make  up 
the  depreciation  of  my  salary,  and  also  for  some 
incidental  expences  I  had  been  at  This  letter 
was  referred  to  a  committee  of  which  Elbridge 
Gerry  was  chairman. 

Mr.  Gerry  then  came  to  me  and  said  that  the 
committee  had  consulted  on  the  subject,  and  they 
intended  to  bring  in  a  handsome  report,  but  that 
they  thought  it  best  not  to  take  any  notice  of 
your  letter  or  make  any  reference  to  Deane's  af 
fair  or  your  salary.  They  will  indemnify  you, 
said  he  without  it.  The  case  is,  there  are  some 
motions  on  the  journals  of  congress,  for  censur 
ing  you  with  respect  to  Deane's  affair,  which  can- 


334  APPENDIX. 

not  now  be  recalled,  because  they  have  been 
printed.  Therefore,  will  bring  in  a  report  that 
will  supersede  them  without  mentioning  the  pur 
port  of  your  letter. 

This,  citizen  representatives,  is  an  explanation 
of  the  resolve  of  the  old  congress.  It  was  an  in 
demnity  to  me  for  some  injustice  done  me,  for 
congress  had  acted  dishonorably  to  me.  How 
ever,  I  prevented  Deane's  fraudulent  demand  be 
ing  paid,  and  so  far  the  country  is  obliged  to  me, 
but  I  became  the  victim  of  my  integrity. 

I  preferred  stating  this  explanation  to  the  com 
mittee  rather  than  to  make  it  public  in  my  me 
morial  to  congress. 

THOMAS  PAINE, 


NEW  YORK,  PARTITION  STREET, 

NO.  63,  FEB.  28,   1808. 
SIR, 

I  addressed  a  memorial  to  congress  dated  Jan 
uary  2 1 ,  which  was  presented  by  George  Clinton, 
junior,  and  referred  to  the  committee  of  claims. 
As  soon  as  I  knew  to  what  committee  it  was  re 
ferred,  I  wrote  to  that  committee  and  informed 
them  of  the  particulars  respecting  a  vote  of  the 
old  congress  of  3000  dollars  to  me,  as  I  mention 
ed  I  would  do  in  my  memorial,  since  which  I 


APPENDIX.  335 

ftave  heard  nothing  of  the  memorial  or  of  any 
proceedings  upon  it. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  me  to  know  what  con 
gress  will  decide  on,  because  it  will  determine 
me,  whether,  after  so  many  years  of  generous 
services,  and  that  in  the  most  perilous  times,  and 
after  seventy  years  of  age,  I  shall  continue  in 
this  country,  or  offer  my  services  to  some  other 
country.  It  will  not  be  to  England,  unless  there 
should  be  a  revolution. 

Mv  request  to  you  is,  that  you  will  call  on  the 
committee  of  claims  to  bring  in  their  report,  and 
that  congress  would  decide  upon  it.  I  shall  then 
know  what  to  do. 

Yours  in  friendship, 

THOMAS  PAINE, 
The  honourable  the  Speaker 

of  the  house  of  representatives. 


NEW  YORK,  MARCH  7,  1808, 

SIR, 

I  wrote  you  a  week  ago,  prior  to  the  date  of 
this  letter,  respecting  my  memorial  to  congress, 
but  I  have  not  yet  seen  any  account  of  any  pro 
ceedings  upon  it. 

I  know  not  \vho  the  committee  of  claims  are, 
Vut  if  they  are  men  of  younger  standing  than 
"  the  times  that  tried  men's  soulsS*  and  conse- 


336  APPENDIX. 

quently  too  young  to  know  what  the  condition  of 
the  country  was  at  the  time  I  published  Common 
Sense,  for  I  do  not  believe  independence  would 
have  been  declared  had  it  not  been  for  the  effect 
of  that  work,  they  are  not  capable  of  judging  of 
the  whole  of  the  services  of  Thomas  Paine. 
The  president  and  vice-president  can  give  you  in 
formation  on  those  subjects,  so  also  can  Mr.  Smi- 
lie,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  legis 
lature  at  the  times  I  am  speaking  of.  He  knows 
the  inconveniencies  I  was  often  put  to,  for  tl^  old 
congress  treated  me  with  ingratitude.  TThey 
seemed  to  be  disgusted  at  my  popularity,  and 
acted  towards  me  as  a  rival  instead  of  a  friend.;* 

The  explanation  I  sent  to  the  committee  re 
specting  &  resolve  of  the  old  congress  while  they 
sat  at  .New- York  should  be  known  to  congress, 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  committee  keep  every 
thing  to>  themselves  and  do  nothing.  If  my  me 
morial  A^as  referred  to  the  commitee  of  claims, 
for  the  purpose  of  losing  it,  it  is  unmanly  policy. 
After  so  many  years  of  service  my  heart  grows 
cold  towards  America. 

Yours  in  friendship, 

THOMAS  PAINE. 
The  honourable  the  Speaker 

of  the  house  of  representatives. 

P.  S.  I  repeat  my  request  that  you  would  call 
on  the  committee  of  claims  to  bring  in  their  re 
port,  and  that  congress  would  decide  upon  it. 


APPENDIX.  337 

SENATE  CHAMBER,  MARCH  23,  1808. 
SIR, 

From  the  information  I  received  at  the  time,  I 
have  reason  to  believe  that  Mr.  Paine  accompa 
nied  colonel  Laurens  on  his  mission  to  France  in 
the  course  of  our  revolutionary  war,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  negotiating  a  loan,  and  that  he  acted  as 
his  secretary  on  that  'occasion ;  but  although  I 
have  no  doubt  of  the  truth  of  this  fact,  I  cannot 
assert  it  from  my  own  actual  knowledge. 
I  am  with  great  respect, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

GEORGE  CLINTON. 
David  Holmes,  Esqmre. 


The  People  of  the  State  of  New-York,  by  the 
Grace "  of  God,  Free  and  Independent,  to  all 
to  whom  these  presents  shall  come  or  may  con 
cern,  SEND  GREETING  : 

KNOW  YE,  That  the  annexed  is  a  true  copy  of 
the  will  of  THOMAS  PAINE,  deceased,  as  re 
corded  in  the  office  of  our  surrogate,  in  and  for 
the  city  and  county  of  New- York.  In  testimony 
whereof,  we  have  caused  the  seal  of  office  of  our 
said  surrogate  to  be  hereunto  affixed. — Witness, 
Silvanus  Miller,  Esq.  surrogate  of  said  county,  at 
the  city  of  New-York,  the  twelfth  day  of  July, 

S  s 


338  APPENDIX, 

In  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hun 
dred  and  nine,  and  of  our  Independence  the 
thirty-fourth. 

SILVANUS  MILLER. 


The  last  will  and  testament  of  me,  the  subscri 
ber,  THOMAS  PAINE,  reposing  confidence  in  my 
Creator  God,  and  in  no  other  being,  for  I  know 
of  no  other,  nor  believe  in  any  other,  I  Thomas 
Paine,  of  the  state  of  New- York,  author  of  the 
work  entitled  Common  SeJise,  written  in  Philadel 
phia,  in  1775,  and  published  in  that  city  the  be 
ginning  of  January,  1776,  which  awaked  Ameri 
ca  to  a  Declaration  of  Independence,   on  the 
fourth  of  July  following,  which  was  as  fast  as  the 
H  work  could  spread  through  such  an  extensive 
§  country ;  author  also  of  the  several  numbers  of 
'£  the  American  Crisis,  "  thirteen  in  all,"  published 
JrJ  occasionally  during  the  progress  of  the  revolu- 
5  tionary  war — the  last  is  on  the  peace ;  author  al 
so  of  the  Rights  of  Man ,  parts  the  first  and  se 
cond,  written  and  published  in  London,  in  1791 
and  92  ;  author  also  of  a  work  on  religion,  4ge 
of  Reason,  part  the  first  and  second.     "  N.  B.  I 
have  a  third  part  by  me  in  manuscript  and  an 
answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff;"  author  also 
of  a  work,  lately  published,  entitled  Examination 


APPENDIX. 

of  the  passages  in  the  New  Testament  quoted  from 
the  Old)  and  called  Prophecies  concerning  Jesus 
Christ,  and  shewing  there  are  no  prophecies  of 
any  such  person;  author  also  of  several  other 
works  not  here  enumerated,  <c  Dissertations  on 
first  principals  of  government" — "  Decline  and 
fall  of  the  English  system  of  finance" — "  Agra 
rian  Justice,"  &c.  &c/  make  this  my  last  will  and 
testament,  that  is  to  say :  I  give  and  bequeath  to 
iny  executors  herein  after  appointed,  Walter  Mor 
ton  and  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  thirty  shares  I  hold 
in  the  New-York  Phoenix  Insurance  Company  § 
which  cost  me  1470  dollars,  they  are  worth  now  p^ 
upwards  of  1500  dollars  and  all  my  moveable  ef-  % 
fects  and  also  the  money  that  may  be  in  my  trunk  c 
or  elsewhere  at  the  time  of  my  decease  paying  H 
thereout  the  expences  of  my  funeral,  IN  TRUST  as  to 
the  said  shares,  moveables  and  money  for  Marga 
ret  Brazeir  Bonneville,  wife  of  Nicholas  Bonne- 
ville,  of  Paris,  for  her  own  sole  and  separate  use, 
and  at  her  own  disposal,  notwithstanding  her  co 
verture.  As  to  my  farm  in  New-Rochelle,  I  give, 
devise,  and  bequeath  the  same  to  my  said  execu 
tors  Walter  Morton  and  Thomas  Addis  Emmet 
and  to  the  survivor  of  them,  his  heirs  and  assigns 
forever,  IN  TRUST,  nevertheless,  to  sell  and  dispose 
of  the  north  side  thereof,  now  in  the  occupation 
of  Andrew  A.  Dean,  beginning  at  the  west  end 


340  APPENDIX. 

of  the  orchard  and  running  in  a  line  with  the 

land  sold  to  Coles,  to  the  end  of  the  farm, 

and  to  apply  the  money  arising  from  such  sale  as 
hereinafter  directed.  I  give  to  my  friends  Wal 
ter  Morton,  of  the  New- York  Phoenix  Insurance 
Company,  and  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  counsel 
lor  at  law,  late  of  Ireland,  two  hundred  dollars 
each,  and  one  hundred  dollars  to  Mrs.  Palmer, 
widow  of  Elihu  Palmer,  late  of  New-York,  to  be 
paid  out  the  money  arising  from  said  sale,  and  I 
give  the  remainder  of  the  money  arising  from 
that  sale,  one  half  thereof  to  Clio  Rickman,  of 
High  or  Upper  Mary-la-Bonne  street,  London, 
and  the  other  half  to  Nicholas  Bonneville,  of  Pa 
ns,  husband  of  Margaret  B.  Bonneville  aforesaid: 
and  as  to  the  south  part  of  the  said  farm,  con 
taining  upwards  of  one  hundred  acres,  in  trust  to 
rent  out  the  same  or  otherwise  put  it  to  profit,  as 
shall  be  found  most  adviseable,  and  to  pay  the 
rents  and  profits  thereof  to  the  said  Margaret  B. 
Bonneviile,  in  trust  for  her  children,  Benjamin 
Bonneville  and  Thomas  Bonneville,  their  educa 
tion  and  maintenance,  until  they  come  to  the  age 
of  twenty-one  years,  in  order  that  she  may  bring 
them  well  up,  give  them  good  and  useful  learn 
ing,  and  instruct  them  in  their  duty  to  God,  and 
the  practice  of  morality,  the  rent  of  the  land  or 
the  interest  of  the  money  for  which  it  may  be 


APPENDIX-  341 

sold,  as  herein  after  mentioned,  to  be  employed 
in  their  education.  And  after  the  youngest  of 
the  said  children  shall  have  arrived  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one  years,  in  further  trust  to  convey  the 
same  to  the  said  children  share  and  share  alike  in 
fee  simple.  But  if  it  shall  be  thought  adviseable 
by  my  executors  and  executrix,  or  the  survivor 
or  survivors  of  them,  at  any  time  before  the 
youngest  of  the  said  children  shall  come  of  age, 
to  sell  and  dispose  of  the  said  south  side  of  the 
said  farm,  in  that  case  I  hereby  authorise  and  g 
empower  my  said  executors  to  sell  and  dispose  of  J*j' 
the  same,  and  I  direct  that  the  money  arising  OT 
from  such  sale  be  put  into  stock,  either  in  the  U-  § 
nited  States  bank  stock  or  New- York  Phoenix  in-  ^ 
surance  company  stock,  the  interest  or  dividends 
thereof  to  be  applied  as  is  already  directed  for 
the  education  and  maintenance  of  the  said 
children  ;  and  the  principal  to  be  transferred  to 
the  said  children  or  the  survivor  of  them  on  his 
or  their  coming  of  age.  I  know  not  if  the  socie 
ty  of  people  called  quakers  admit  a  person  to  be 
buried  in  their  burying  ground,  who  does  not  be 
long  to  their  society,  but  if  they  do  or  will  admit 
me,  I  would  prefer  being  buried  there  my  father 
belonged  to  that  profession,  and  I  was  partly 
brought  up  in  it.  But  if  it  is  not  consistent  with 
their  rules  to  do  this,  I  desire  to  be  buried  on  my 


APPENDIX. 

farm  at  New-Rochelle.  The  place  where  I  am 
to  be  buried,  to  be  a  square  of  twelve  feet,  to  be 
enclosed  with  rows  of  trees,  and  a  stone  or  post 
and  rail  fence,  with  a  head  stone  with  my  name 
and  age  engraved  upon  it,  author  of  Common 
Sense.  I  nominate,  constitute,  and  appoint 
Walter  Morton,*  of  the  New-York  Phoenix  In 
surance  Company,  and  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,f 
counsellor  at  law,  late  of  Ireland,  and  Margaret 
B.  Bonneville,  executors  and  executrix  to  this 
my  last  will  and  testament,  requesting  them  the 


(*)  A  Scotchman  by  birth.  He  is  a  clerk  in  the  Phoenix 
company ;  was  a  steady  companion  of  Paine  before  his  illness 
but  paid  him  no  visit  for  a  week  before  his  decease. 


(f)  The  respectability  of  Mr.  Emmet's  family  is  better 
known  in  Europe  than  in  the  United  States.  He  was  one  of 
those  gentlemen  who  considered  his  country  as  oppressed,  and 
•*vas  willing  to  make  great  sacrifices  to  redeem  her  freedom. 
He  was  involved  in  the  general  charge  of  corresponding  with 
the  French  directory,  with  the  view  of  introducing  into  his 
country  a  powerful  French  force,  but,  much  as  I  have  read 
on  this  subject,  I  have  seen  nothing  to  convince  me,  that  the 
accusation,  with  regard  to  him,  is  not  groundless.  I  have  the 
honour  of  being  personally  acquainted  with  Mr-  Emmet. 
His  former  and  present  opinions  of  the  French  government 
respecting  his  country,  are  correct.  France  would  not  in 
vade  Ireland  to  liberate  her  from  oppression,  but  to  oppress 
her  more.  That  he  is  a  friend  of  freedom  is  true,  but  surely 


APPENDIX. 

said  Walter  Morton  and  Thomas  Addis  Emmet, 
that  they  will  give  what  assistance  they  conven 
iently  can  to  Mrs.  Bonneville,  and  see  that  the 
children  be  well  brought  up.  Thus  placing  confi 
dence  in  their  friendship,  I  herewith  take  my 
final  leave  of  them  and  of  the  world.  I  have 
lived  an  honest  and  useful  life  to  mankind  ;  my 
time  has  been  spent  ifi  doing  good  ;  and  I  die  in 
perfect  composure  and  resignation  to  the  will  of 
my  Creator  God.  Dated  this  eightenth  day  of 
Janry.  in  the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred 


this  ought  not  to  be  considered  as  an  offence  in  England,  the 
birth-place  of  the  most  illustrious  advocates  of  liberty  that  the 
world  has  known.  He  was,  however,  arrested  in  Dublin  in, 
March,  1799,  and,  without  trial,  imprisoned  in  Fort  George, 
Scotland,  the  following  April.  Here  he  continued  until  June, 
1802,  when,  without  trial,  he  was  liberated  at  Cuxhaven, 
whence  he  passed  to  Holland,  and  thence,  in  February,  1803, 
to  Paris.  He  sailed  from  Bordeaux  in  September,  1804,  and 
arrived  in  New- York  the  following  month,  where  he  was  ad 
mitted  to  the  bar  in  the  February  term  of  1805,  and  now 
wholly  devotes  his  time  to  his  laborious  profession.  Perhaps 
it  were  invidious  to  say  that  he  occupies  the  first  professional 
standing  in  the  state.  He  is  universally  respected,  as  he  de 
serves  to  be,  and  has  as  much  as  he  can  attend  to  of  the  first 
professional  business.  He  is  now  in  the  45th  year  of  his  age, 
has  an  amiable  wife,  and  nine  promising  children.  Why  Paine 
appointed  him  an  executor  I  know  not,  except  from  his  known 
integrity,  for  those  who  pay  no  regard  to  that  virtue  in  their 
ajctions,  must  respect  it  when  making  a  will.  Unless  profes 
sionally,  Mr.  Emmet,  I  believe,  had  no  intercourse  with 
P.aine. 


344  APPENDIX. 

and  nine,  and  I  have  also  signed  my  name  to  the* 
other  sheet  of  this  will  in  testimony  of  its  being  a 
part  thereof. 

THOMAS  PAINE.  [LA] 

Signed,  sealed,  published  and  declared  by  the 
testator,  in  our  presence,  who  at  his  request,  and 
in  the  presence  of  each  other,  have  set  our  names 
as  witnesses  thereto,  the  words  "  published  and 
declared"  first  interlined. 

WM.  KEESE, 
JAMES  ANGEVINE, 
CORNELIUS  RYDER. 


LIST  OF  PAINE'S  WORKS. 


Introduction  to  the  Pennsylvania 

Magazine,  January  24,  1775,  p.  1  octavo 

To  the  Publisher  of  Do.  on  the  uti 
lity  of  Magazines,  no  place,  no 
date,  Philadelphia,  1775,  (sup 
posed)  .  .  .  .  .  5  do. 

Useful  and  entertaining  hints  on 
the  internal  riches  of  the  colo 
nies,  Pennsylvania  Magazine, 
Phil.  1775.  6  do. 


APPENDIX,  345 

Reflections  on  the  death  of  Lord 
Clive,  Pennsylvania  Magazine, 
(not  seen) 

New  Anecdotes  of  Alexander  the 

Great,  Penn.  Mag.  1775,  .  p.  3  octavo. 

Common  Sense,  Phil.  Jan.  1776,  47  do. 

Epistle  to  the  Quakers,  Phil.  1776,          5  do. 

The  Crisis,  16  numbers,  from  Dec. 
23,  1776,  to  Dec.  9,  1783,  total 
pages 144  do. 

Letter  to  Abbe  Raynal,  Philad. 

1782, 55  do. 

Publick  Good,  being  an  Examina 
tion  of  the  Claim  of  Virginia  to 
the  Vacant  Western  Territory, 
&c.  Phil.  1784,  .  .  .  31  do. 

Dissertations  on  Government,  the 
Affairs  of  the  Bank,  and  Paper 
Money,  Phil.  1786,  .  .  50  do. 

Prospects  on  the  Rubicon,  London, 

1787,  .  .  .  .  .  32  do. 

Letter  to  the  Authors  of  the  Repub 
lican,  Paris,  1791,  .  .  .  4 

Rights  of  Man,  part  1.  London, 

1791, 98  do. 

Letter  to  Abbe  Seyes,   1791,  2  do. 

Rights  of  Man,  part  2,  London, 

1792,  ..  .  .  122  do. 

T  t. 


346 


APPENDIX. 


Letter  to  Henry  Dundas,  London, 

June  6,  1792,  ...     p.  11  octavo. 

Letter  to  Lord  Onslow,  London, 

June  17,  1792,         .       f;      J  3*J        4  do. 

Letter  to  Onslow  Cranley,  com- 
monly  called  Lord  Onslow,  Lon 
don,  June  21,  1792,  ^;-  ^  3  do. 

Address  to  the  Addressers,  Lon 
don,  July,  1792,  '  T:  "'(-  .  42  do. 

Letter  to  Secretary  Dundas,  on  his 
detention  at  Dover;  Calais,  Sept. 
15,  1792,  .  .  .*  .  3  do. 

Letter  to  the  People  of  France,  (on 
his  election  to  the  convention) 
Paris,  Sept.  25,  1792,  ^^  .  3  do. 

Letter  to  the  Attorney -General  of 
England  on  the  prosecution  a- 
gainst  him,  Paris,  Nov.  1 1,  1792,  2  do. 

Reasons  for  preserving  the  life  of 

Louis  XVI.  Paris,  Jan.  1793,  6  do, 

Age  of  Reason,  part  1,  Paris,  1794,       96  duo, 

Dissertations  on  first  principles  of 

government,  Paris,  1794,        ^  V        18  octavo, 

Speech  delivered  in  the  convention 

against  the  constitution  of  1795,          8  do. 

Agrarian  Justice,  Paris,  1796,       .         32  do. 

Pecline  and  fall  of  the  English 

system  of  finance,  Paris,  1796,  23  do, 


APPENDIX. 


347 


Letter  to  George  Washington,  Pa 
ris,  1796,         ....      p.  76octavo> 
Age  of  Reason,  part  2,  Paris,  1796,      199  duo. 
Letter  to  the  Hon.  Thomas  Er- 
skine  on  the  prosecution  of  Wil 
liams,  Paris,  1797,  .        .        24  octavo. 
Letter  to  the  people  and  armies  of 
France  on  the  events  of  the  1 8th 
Fructidor,  Paris,  1797,     .         .         52  do. 
Discourse  to  the  Theophilanthro- 

pists,  Paris,   1797,  .         .  6  do. 

Letters  to  the  Citizens  of  the  Unit 
ed  States,  Washington,  1802,  50  do. 
Examination   of  the  Prophecies, 
Essay  on  Dream,  &c.  New- York, 

1807, 66  do. 

He  wrote,  in  addition,  from  1805  to  1808,  es 
says  for  our  newspapers,  some  of  which  were  de 
cidedly  in  favour  of  an  invasion  of  the  United 
States  by  the  French. 

His  productions  in  verse  are  fugitive,  and  have 
never  been  collected.  The  happiest  of  them,  that 
I  have  seen,  are  his  "  Death  of  Wolfe/'  and  his 
"  Castle  in  the  Air,"  which  I  have  taken  into 
his  life. 


RETURN       CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
TO""^       202  Main  Library 

LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

1 -month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405 
6-month  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books  to  Circulation  Des 
Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  due  date 

DUE   AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


2  8  2005 


,th 

fiEC.  CIR. 


MAR  0  1  2005 


FORM  NO.  DD  6, 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


Berkeley 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


